


Tessellation

by gooseflesh



Series: Saturn In Retrograde [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Long story in progress, M/M, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Post-Canon, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Slow Build, Slow Burn, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-20 07:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14255523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseflesh/pseuds/gooseflesh
Summary: As with most things in Dirk Gently's life, things are fine until they're not.A mystery and minor inconvenience for Todd Brotzman takes a terrifying turn when Dirk insists on investigating, and it'll take more than a hunch for them to hold onto to all that they've built.





	1. The Ghost of Patrick Spring

There are many words that Dirk Gently might use to describe himself, but 'patient' would not be chief among them. He's cleared his throat--quite loudly--no less than four times in three minutes and his best friend slash assistant slash fellow crimestopper slash time-traveling companion has yet to notice. 

Dirk watches him play around on his phone with exasperation and fondness in equal measures, then clears his throat in vain one last time before deciding on a more direct approach.

"So, Todd. There's something we need to discuss."

Todd immediately diverts his attention from his cell phone at that, and Dirk can't help but be pleased at Todd's enthusiastic curiosity. It had taken actual words to get that attention, which is a bit disappointing, but it's a far cry better than the annoyance Dirk’s vague proclamations used to earn.

"What's wrong?" Todd asks when it's obvious he's going to have to participate in the conversation a little bit. 

"It's about Patrick Spring."

Todd furrows his brow in a way Dirk has come to think of as endearing, and maybe just a little bit distracting. "What about him?"

"We knew that he _owned_ your building, well--our building, I suppose--and it seems pretty obvious that he lived here as well."

"Okay," comes an agreement so easy Dirk suspects his assistant isn't listening as attentively as he should be.

"Well, I was bored, because you took a _really_ long time at the grocery, and Farah wasn't answering her phone and I think that's because she might be screening my calls, if you can believe that--"

"Please, just--the point, Dirk?"

Dirk pauses for dramatic effect, watching until Todd's eyebrows reached just the right angle between curious and pissed the hell off. "Patrick Spring lived _here_. This was his flat!"

Todd blinks. Dirk’s triumphant smile gradually fades when awe and admiration don't overtake Todd's face.

"Todd, did you hear me?"

"Don't take this the wrong way but is this supposed to be, like, surprising?" Todd asks, as if he's trying not to be rude but failing pretty badly at it. "After everything we've seen--hell, everything we've _done_... That's like the least shocking thing I've heard this week."

Dirk's mouth juts open in offense.

"Sorry, Dirk. You're going to have to try a little harder to blow my mind."

"Well, in that case--"

"I regretted that the moment I said it. That wasn't a challenge for--well, anything. At all."

Dirk throws him an affronted look. "As a matter of fact, I was just going to say: I wasn't done explaining my theory, Todd."

Todd hesitates but predictably takes the bait. "What theory?"

"As you've been complaining to anyone who will listen, your things have been going missing, Todd, things no proper burglar would look twice at. And given the state of your apartment, I mean really, what are the odds one would come back. Repeatedly."

"Okay, there’s no need to be rude about it."

"It's true," Dirk insists, glancing around. "We really need to go shopping."

Todd opens his mouth and then closes it again, and then settles for a suspicious squint. Before he can refuse Dirk's self-invitation to Bed Bath And Beyond, Dirk plows ahead.

"Anyway, focus, please. I was saying--things have been going missing around here for a while, on multiple occasions. Little things that you might not miss and no one could possibly sell. I mean, really, how much would someone get for your shampoo bottle and your spare set of sheets? Not to mention a really old alarm clock that honestly probably didn't really work even before the Rowdy 3’s visit anyway. I think the biggest loss is that plant that was on top of your shelving in the kitchen, and it was nice but it definitely wouldn't fetch even a low price _literally anywhere_."

Todd settles for a reluctant nod. 

"And you're certain you're not just being particularly forgetful lately?"

"Dirk," Todd warns, and said detective knows he's starting to push his luck. He leans in close, as if someone might overhear a particularly juicy secret, and tries not to be insulted when Todd immediately looks leery at his proximity.

"Todd, I believe the ghost of Patrick Spring is haunting your apartment."

Dirk watches a parade of expressions roll across his best friend's face. He identifies surprise, annoyance, apprehension, annoyance again, and something else he can't immediately place. Todd's face eventually lands on amused.

"That's ridiculous. Even for you."

"Now, that's not fair."

"Number one, Patrick Spring hadn't lived in the Ridgely for years. Number two, he didn't die here, Dirk. That's kind of a big ghost thing."

"Oh, I suppose now you're an expert on ghosts, Todd?"

"Number three--"

"This list thing you're doing _really_ isn't necessary--"

"If anyone was going to be haunting me here, it would be Dorian."

Dirk opens his mouth to protest, then frowns thoughtfully. That certainly was a possibility. And he considers agreeing, but Todd's adopted a familiar expression that Dirk has come to hate: guilt. 

"I hadn't realized... Todd, are you still, well, upset about that?"

Todd shrugs and drops down onto the couch. "He shot himself in the head two feet away from where you're standing. It was my fault he was so worked up in the first place. If I hadn't taken that money back--"

"Who knows what would have happened," Dirk interrupts quickly, planting himself beside Todd. If he sits a bit too close, Todd has the grace not to comment on it. "Maybe it was the will of the universe. You saw how ludicrous the trajectory of that bullet was. It could have passed harmlessly by us without killing your landlord, but it _didn't_. Maybe it was just meant to be."

Todd's still not meeting his eyes, which means he's not convinced. Dirk pats him on the arm a bunch of times to get his attention properly and earns himself a reproachful stare for his effort.

"Todd, it wasn't your fault."

"Okay," comes a flat agreement, the second too-easy one of the day. Dirk think it's one of Todd's 'I'll say yes if it means you'll shut up' agreements, and he's never quite figured out how to work around those. So he sits back a bit, adds another file to the Todd's Self-Loathing folder in his brain, and decides to get back on track.

"Whether it's Dorian or Mr. Spring, I do believe a spirit might be behind your missing possessions," he asserts cheerfully. Todd glances at him and cracks half a smile after a moment, and even though the hollowness doesn't entirely leave his eyes Dirk's willing to call it a victory.

"That's stupid," Todd teases weakly. 

"Well, do you have a better idea? Who else would want your junk?"

"Why would a ghost want my junk?"

That gives Dirk pause. "Well," he concedes, "maybe I haven't gotten all the details yet. But it's worth looking into."

"And just how are we going to do that? Ouija boards, séances, that kind of crap?"

"Oh, that's a good idea, Todd! But we'll have to do some research. I was thinking of interviewing your neighbors, to start with. And, oh!" He claps his hands together. "The previous tenant, we'll have to track him or her down, of course."

"Dirk, it's not going to be easy. We're already definitely not on great terms with my neighbors."

"Then there's nothing to lose!"

Todd makes a face but doesn't argue. At least, not immediately. It takes a few moments before he sits up and stares at Dirk in alarm. "Wait, you're not--you know this isn't a _case_ , right?"

Dirk wiggles his eyebrows and sends his friend one of his most fetching smiles. "I suppose we'll see."

He huffs, offended, when Todd goes pale at the thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written a grand total of two (2) stories before, but I love Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency so goddamn much I decided to give this a shot. This story is still very much in development, so let me know if you like what you read!
> 
> Also, I'll be updating the warnings as I write, so please keep an eye on those. I will include any major changes to the tags in a note for the chapter if it comes to that, though. 
> 
> So yeah, anyway, relatively new to this whole thing so let me know how the pacing and characterization feels!


	2. The Case of the Missing Case

"And you're absolutely sure you didn't, um, stash it away somewhere?"

"Dirk, where--where the hell would I stash it? It's a guitar case, not a piece of paper. It wouldn't even fit under my bed."

"Ah," Dirk concedes easily, remembering his own mishap with trying to dive under said bed, once upon a time. "We'll add it to the list, then!" 

Todd breathes out through his nose, trying for patient but falling a bit short. He leans against the back of the couch and folds his arms as Dirk messes around on his phone.

"As I was saying just last night--"

"It's not a ghost, Dirk--"

"--We should start our investigation right away. I did some googling on the occult and you were probably spot on about the, um, those spirit boards. How do you spell that again? W-E-G--”

“O-U-I-J-A.”

Dirk throws him an incredulous look, to which Todd shrugs. 

"And that wasn't actually a real suggestion, Dirk."

"Well, regardless, it was a good _fake_ suggestion then, Todd.” Dirk taps away at his screen and then aims a dazzling smile down at the device. “It looks like we can procure one at a store nearby called Toys ‘R Us."

Todd blinks quickly a few times, trying to process that scenario, and has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Dirk in a toy store--well, that might just be a trip he wouldn't mind witnessing, at least until he considers the likelihood that his own apartment would somehow wind up stuffed to the gills with stuffed animals. 

"I'm sure there's somewhere else we can get one. Maybe someplace a little more, uh, authentic?" He offers, then pinches the bridge of his nose with frustration when he realizes he’s playing along a little too well. "Wait, hold on. Let's hold off on the ouija board for now, Dirk."

Dirk's mouth twists into a pout and it inspires irritation and amusement in equal intensities for Todd. 

"Then where do you suggest we start?" Dirk asks, and Todd's more than a bit surprised--he can't remember the last time he was asked what they should do. Dirk was their leader. And even if that meant progressing in the most inane, roundabout, ridiculous way possible, it did get results. Eventually.

"Um. Talking to neighbors?" 

"Boring. But fine. It's your junk," Dirk shrugs, "have it your way."

“Good,” Todd sighs. He thinks the ghost stuff is crap. It's not even that there _isn't_ a possibility of spirits--with Dirk around everything is on the table--it's just that there's no way in hell one is taking his shampoo. It's some shitty kid in the neighborhood, most likely the Ridgely itself, practicing his cat burglar skills on an easy target. Talking to his neighbors would help sort out if other people have had weird things stolen, and that would be that.

Maybe.

"So! Shall we ‘tag team’ them, or go for more of a one-on-one interrogation style?"

Todd opens and closes his mouth three times before he can decide on the least offensive answer.

◈ ◈ ◈

"Well that was _spectacularly_ unhelpful," Dirk grouses two hours later. They'd knocked on every door on Todd's floor, the one above, and the one below, and less than a third of those residents had answered. And even doors that did open were typically slammed within thirty seconds, with the notable exception of a foul-looking flat with three middle-aged sisters.

The sisters had invited them inside, much to Todd's obvious discomfort, and had explained that while they hadn't noticed anything missing, their cat, Dennis, hadn't been seen all day. That had caught Dirk's attention, but it turned out that Dennis was something of an escape artist and went missing no less than four times a month, as the woman with the largest forehead Dirk had ever seen informed them. From there, Dirk and Todd had been treated to a very thorough description of the sisters' DVD collection before Todd had managed to make an awkward excuse and bolt for the door. Dirk had been left to flutter his hands in panic, stammer a goodbye, and then turn tail and speed-walk after him. 

Not Dirk’s most dignified exit. But also maybe not his worst.

In the end, they'd decided to take a walk around the Ridgely before returning to Todd's flat, hoping to clear the pungent odor from their clothes. But Dirk’s not entirely convinced they’ve shaken the smell and he’s glad that it’s not _his_ living room they’re stumbling into.

"Well," Todd sighs, sinking down onto his bed, "that went about how I expected it would go. At least we learned that not everyone else has had crap disappearing."

"Aside from Dennis."

Todd throws him a look. "That's nothing new. That stupid cat slips out when they go out to smoke, which is like ten times a day, and then meows outside all night until they let it in."

"Oh!" Dirk exclaims with realization, perching cheerfully on the couch's armrest. "I have heard that! I always assumed it was a stray. I tried to lure him with some ham slices I found in my refrigerator one night, but he wouldn't come near me. Which is very unusual. Cats love me."

"I don't think we're even allowed to have animals here," Todd says so quickly the words are nearly unintelligible. Dirk's puzzled at his shifty reaction for a moment, then laughs when he understands that Todd thinks he's thinking about adopting feline friend of his own.

"Todd, don’t tell me you have a thing against pets. You have an old water bowl--dispenser--thing, in the corner of your kitchen. It's been there since we first met!"

"You mean, since you first broke in."

"Semantics," Dirk dismisses with a wave of his hand. "The point is, you clearly had an animal here at some point."

Todd shrugs. "That was a while ago. Now that Dorian's gone--new management says no pets."

"Ah, yes, the new landlord is a bit of a dick."

That earns an easy laugh from Todd, the kind that seems to have surprised its way out of him. Dirk feels a flutter of pride for having provoked it; for one reason or another, Todd always seems amused when he uses profanity unexpectedly. 

"Yeah, he's an asshole. But I mean, this isn't exactly prime real estate," Todd acknowledges in a very shallow attempt at empathy. 

"Given the historic nature of this place, I do find that surprising."

"No one else knows a time-traveling genius with an unlimited energy device lived here."

Dirk hums with disapproval but doesn't argue--he's lost interest in the conversation and is busy studying his friend in the fading September light, and decides he’s looking a bit too pale. And Dirk certainly knows at least one remedy for that.

"Hungry?" he chirps, crossing one leg primly over the other.

"I could eat.”

Dirk rolls his eyes at the noncommittal-ness of the phrase, and Todd's mouth quirks in an almost-smile as he corrects it to, "Mexican sounds good."

"Mexican it is!" Dirk agrees happily, standing and stretching. "I'll meet you out front, I want to change first."

"Into a different jacket?" Todd asks dryly, eyeing Dirk's blue one with something Dirk hopes isn't a smirk. 

"As a matter of fact, my yellow one is a bit warmer."

It's Todd's turn to roll his eyes, but he does it so fondly Dirk can't hold back a smile. He promises to be on the steps of the Ridgely in five minutes and then scrambles down the stairs to his own flat.

◈ ◈ ◈

Dirk had actually made it out front in less than three minutes, but then had gotten distracted looking under cars for Dennis for another ten. By the time he realized Todd was late he wasn't sure if he should be irritated or vindicated. Todd had teased him about the jacket thing, but he'd done it good-naturedly... And in any case, Dirk had gotten the chance to snoop around for the cat.

He goes back to the front steps and waits another five minutes until he feels the first twist of worry curl in his gut. He glances at his watch, then the doors of the Ridgely, and then at his phone. No new messages or missed calls. 

Dirk decides he can check on Todd without it being weird. He knows his friend doesn't especially appreciate people fussing over him, but well, he was almost twenty minutes late to an appointment one hallway and one set of stairs away. 

Dirk's halfway up said stairs when Todd comes stumbling down, nearly missing a step in surprise when they collide. Dirk steadies him with a quick hand and begins to scold the smaller man for being careless, but then he frowns; there's a grayness in Todd's face that hadn't been there before, a sort of washed-out look that makes the dark bags under his big eyes stand out. His lips are white and his gaze jumps between Dirk and the railing without really focusing on either.

"Are you okay?" Dirk asks gently. He belatedly realizes that his hand is still helpfully braced against Todd's bicep, but his friend isn't complaining so he doesn't remove it.

"Yeah, fine. Sorry. Couldn't find my wallet," Todd says, but he only meets Dirk's eyes for a moment before pulling away and starting down the stairs again.

Dirk follows at his heels and tries not to get angry. He knows that Todd is sensitive about his pararibulitis, secretive even, but it still hurts that he doesn't talk about it with Dirk. Especially after some hard things Dirk had shared before--about his mother, about Blackwing. Dirk tells himself it's different, but he can't wrap his head around why his best friend feels the need to hide his illness like it’s a dirty secret.

But he bites his tongue on the subject. Again. He hasn't found the right words yet, but he swears to himself that he'll have the courage to broach the subject once he does. 

They walk in silence out onto the street and then around the corner, Todd leading the way as if he’s hoping to somehow outpace Dirk's long legs. But he soon loses steam and slows down, keeping his eyes fixed on the sidewalk, and Dirk thinks he looks... sad, somehow. Or tired. Or maybe a mixture of the two.

Dirk doesn't know for certain that Todd had an attack, or even a near miss, but he thinks he's getting better at picking up on the signs of the aftermath. The silence--which is probably one of the most obvious signs--makes him ill at ease, so he updates Todd on the Dennis Situation. Todd barely looks surprised at the news that Dirk had been kneeling in the street, peering under cars, and Dirk feels a strange flutter of affection for this man who doesn't even blink at his oddities. Todd may not enjoy all of Dirk’s quirks, but he _accepts_ them, and that’s more than Dirk’s ever had any right to expect of anyone. 

It fills him with a wonderful warmth and he chatters aimlessly as they walk, until they're both smiling and Todd's shaking his head in helpless laughter.

◈ ◈ ◈

"Control. Order. These are now our priorities."

Ken's voice rings clear and rich in the confines of the makeshift conference room in the heart of Blackwing, and Priest watches as the words straighten the spines of their newest recruits.

"The Assets are a means to that end--if we're to understand anything else from here on out, it will be through them. They must work with us."

There's a murmur of assent, a dark grumble that promises violence, and Ken's brow drops as he observes them. To Priest, it looks very much like the man's guessed at their thoughts.

"You've all be trained in combat," Ken says slowly, chewing each word to emphasize their importance. "But we will not bring the Assets in kicking and screaming--they're going to come in on their own this time."

That sounds well and good to Priest, but as much as he likes his new boss he can't help but mirror the skepticism he sees on the agents’ faces. 

"Alright, but Supervisor Adams..." comes a thoughtful voice near the front; it's neither timid nor challenging, but Ken's eyes narrow all the same. "How exactly do we get them to do that?"

"These people aren't another species--they're just that, _people_ ," Ken replies, a reprimand clear in his voice. He leans back against the table he's been lecturing in front of, eyeing the group. "And every person has their weakness. A... pressure point, if you will."

Priest's eyebrows lift before he can think better of it and the split skin of his face twinges painfully at the movement. There's a pause as the newbies glance at one another, and then a new voice tentatively asks, "You mean we should, like, threaten them?"

Ken frowns. "I wouldn't call it that," he clarifies diplomatically, clasping his hands in his lap and looking for all the world like a professor. "You won't get very far with threats of violence--you can't put a gun on these people and expect them not to fight back."

Priest's scarring skin prickles in agreement. "Most aren’t the roll-over-and-die type," he drawls, suddenly earning twenty-five pairs of eyes. Many of the recruits quickly look away again, unnerved by the obscene state of his face, but a couple continue to stare curiously. Priest points at his wound and makes a sound that might pass as a laugh. "I'm living proof of that."

Ken nods, as if with approval. "So, your next question is how--how to bring these psychics, shapeshifters, these tricksters in."

The pupils bob their heads thoughtfully, even though most already probably know the answer. Ken inclines his head and raises his eyebrows, waiting.

"We target the people they care about," says a young man somewhere in the middle of the pack. Priest eyes him as the other recruits turn to look at their outspoken cohort. "These... _people_ , they can dodge bullets, turn into tigers, cannons, whatever, right?" The man shrugs nonchalantly as he speaks and Priest takes a moment to marvel at how well the youngsters have accepted the supernatural in stride. "What are we supposed to do against that? We can’t beat them. But it's like you said, Supervisor Adams--pressure points. They have to have moms, dads, boyfriends and girlfriends, maybe even kids."

A ripple of unease rises up in some of group, but most are nodding along now.

"That's right. That's exactly right," Ken replies, voice warm with approval, and the recruit ducks his head with pleasure. Reading the handful of unsettled faces in the room, Ken smiles, smooth as a oil slick. "We don't hurt them--we're not here to hurt anyone. But the Assets don't know that, and if we strike in the right places at the right time, they _will_ come to us peacefully."

Ken pushes off of the table and moves closer to his underlings, and they lean forward eagerly, won over by his mild-mannered conviction. _Here's a man who knows what he's doing_ , they seem to think, and Priest curls up one side of his mouth in a smile because they are entirely correct. Ken's done his research and, hell, he'd had a goddamn roadtrip with Bart Curlish and not only lived to tell the tale, he'd actually _changed_ her behavior. He had molded her will to his own just as easily as he'd inserted himself into Blackwing's ranks.

Ken Adams was a force to be reckoned with and these kids could see that just as well as Priest could.

"Most of the hard work has already been done," Ken tells the group with a smile. "We know almost all there is to know about most of the Projects--their families, friends, their strengths and their fears. We just have to locate them, observe, and wait for the right moment to apply that pressure."

Heads nod again and many smile in return. 

"Who do we start with, boss?" Priest asks smoothly. He's got a few Assets in mind. Ken turns and offers a knowing smile.

"We hit as many as we can, as fast and hard as we can, all at once. If word gets out that we're grabbing their people, it'll only make our jobs harder." Ken pauses, feigning an air of reluctance. "We'll split into units and scoop up the loved ones--who we will continue to call the Secondaries--and we'll keep them in custody until our Assets come back home."

Ken meets Priest's hungry eyes again, and the Blackwing hunter can see a promise in the steady gaze. 

"It's as simple as that."

◈ ◈ ◈

Dirk's talking a mile a minute. He’s halfway through his fajitas, but he’s got an eye on his friend’s plate and he notices that Todd's only picking at his meal. Dirk refuses to ruin the atmosphere between them by fussing over the other man’s appetite, but it has him concerned all the same. Farah had once mentioned that his medication could mess with that sort of thing, but Dirk doesn’t find any comfort in that fact, not when his invaluable assistant is looking wane in the festively colored lights of their favorite Tex-Mex restaurant.

But at least Todd's still smiling--he’s barely stopped since he pointed out the dirt stains on Dirk's knees and declared him an idiot, so Dirk can put off worrying about eating habits and dry cleaning until tomorrow. And anyway, it’s entirely possible he’s just fixating on Todd--it’s not like he’s ever had a proper friend to worry about before, and it’s likely he’s overcompensating. Or something. 

"We can get you a new guitar case," Dirk announces around a mouthful of rice, inclined to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind when a moment of silence finally finds them. Todd raises his eyebrows and waits for the rest, so Dirk swallows his food and continues. "Your missing case, it's part of the, er, case. So it's probably covered under the agency's insurance."

"I don't think it works like that," Todd laughs, pushing his fork around. 

"Well, we'll ask Farah about it tomorrow."

Todd shrugs, and Dirk suddenly wonders if he should start counting how often he does that in a day. The early hundreds, _surely_. 

"Doesn't matter. I don't exactly need one anymore. I trashed my guitar, remember?"

Dirk does remember. He remembers it distinctly. He has an entire unfortunate slideshow in his head: Todd hiding behind the instrument, looking small and vulnerable; Dorian, spiting and shouting and swinging the handgun around; Todd bashing the instrument against the wall only moments before two police officers had burst in and slapped handcuffs on the both of them. They'd been put in separate squad cars. Dirk hadn't ever really even apologized for leading the Rowdy 3 right to Todd's flat.

He opens his mouth to do so now, but Todd's frowning at something behind Dirk and interrupts him before he can start.

"Hey, isn't that Eddie?" he asks in a low voice.

"Who?"

"Farah's older brother."

Dirk very subtly swings his entire body around to peer at the person in question. He gawks at the man sitting alone a few booths away and then whips back around when the man raises his head to stare back.

"I have _no idea_ , Todd," Dirk whispers aggressively across the table. "She has a _brother_?!"

"Yeah, she met with him when we first got to Bergsberg," Todd mutters, frowning. "I didn't meet him but she's shown me a picture of her family before. We had a lot of free time when we were looking for you."

"Excellent memory, Todd," Dirk gushes with affection, and Todd looks away from Farah's maybe-brother with surprise.

"Well, I mean, I don't know it’s him for sure--"

"No, I'm sure you're right," Dirk says with confidence, and he watches with fascination as Todd's face turns ever so slightly pink. Dirk's about to issue another compliment, just to see how far he can take it, when Todd grimaces and drops his fork.

"Shit! He's coming over."

Dirk's mouth pops open but the imposing man is looming over their table before he can panic. Dirk offers him a weak hello but it isn't returned. 

"Todd Brotzman," the man says with obvious authority and way too much disapproval for Dirk's liking. He's working up the nerve to tell Farah's maybe-brother he's being quite rude when those stern eyes land on him.

"And you must be Dirk Gently."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the kudos and comments on the first chapter! This is definitely a lot of fun to write, but it's always good to know I'm not just posting it into the void. So thank you for the support! ♡


	3. The Bearer of Bad News

"I, er, that is--you see--"

"You're Eddie Black, right?" Todd jumps in, ending Dirk’s stammering and, more importantly, sparing him from having to articulate a proper reply.

"Ed," the man corrects, his brow lowering in a _very_ intimidating manner. Dirk swallows a mouthful of warm spit and tries to figure out something he can apologize for, in the hope of worming into Ed's good--or, well, better--graces.

Todd, on the other hand, is trying to play it cool. His awful dye job has grown out and been cut away, and he's wearing a very fetching black coat instead of that ridiculous teal poncho-sweater-thing he'd brought back after being on the run, and Dirk thinks he looks wonderfully at ease despite the awkward situation.

“Can we help you with something?” the smaller man asks, and Dirk marvels at his nonchalance. Ed, on the other hand, looks less than impressed.

“I highly doubt it. Did Farah tell you to come here?”

“Farah? Whyever would she--Oh! You’re meeting her here, aren’t you? And you think she invited us along?” Dirk wonders out loud. “Well, to answer your question, no. We’re just two normal men, enjoying a normal dinner.”

Ed Black’s left eyebrow raises in a way that Dirk’s seen too many times to mistake for anything but disdain. “Right,” the man intones dryly. “Well. Alright.”

Dirk feels his face turn pink and he scrambles for something to say, but Farah’s brother turns around and abandons their table in favor of returning to his own. He sits down stiffly and promptly proceeds to pretend that they don’t exist. Dirk slowly turns forward and makes a face.

“Well, he’s less than friendly!”

“He and Farah aren’t close,” Todd says like it’s an apology. Dirk ignores the sting of Ed’s rejection and prepares another fajita, trying to roll with it all and move on, but Todd’s eyes linger on the man a few booths back. “I wonder why Farah didn’t mention he was in town.”

“Should she have?”

“I--Well, I guess not,” Todd frowns. “She is a pretty private person.”

“She _is_ , isn’t she,” Dirk muses and stuffs half of his fajita into his mouth, thinking back on what he knows about Farah’s life before the whole Lydia Spring bodyswap disaster. It’s a pretty sparse mental file.

Todd aims his frown down at his food and then picks absently at it, so he misses it when Farah enters the restaurant and nearly marches past them, her eyes fixed on Ed. She would never have even noticed them if Dirk hadn’t issued a delighted squawk and waved a hand excitedly at her.

“ _Farah!_ There you are! We were _just_ talking about you.”

Todd’s head whips up as Farah stumbles to a stop and backtracks a few steps, looking between them like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, but then she rubs at her forehead with resignation. “Dirk. Todd.”

Well, it’s less than an enthusiastic greeting, but Dirk does his best not to be insulted.

“Hi, Farah.” Todd offers her a half-smile and a ‘you should be used to this shit by now’ kind of shrug.

“Yes, we were just enjoying some delightful Tex-Mex. And oh! We _did_ just meet your brother, by the way. He’s not much for manners, is he?”

“He’s, er,” Farah starts, then blinks rapid-fire like she always does when she’s trying to process too many things at once. “You talked to him?”

“He saw us and came over,” Todd shares, “I guess he recognized me from the FBI’s most wanted list, and he figured out who Dirk was by association. I guess.”

“Right.”

“He was quite rude, Farah,” Dirk admonishes, wiping a napkin across his mouth.

“Sorry if we made things weird--”

“Todd, don’t _apologize_ ,” Dirk gasps, scandalized.

“Eddie’s just…” Farah tilts her head and struggles to find the word, but her brother’s caught sight of her and is watching them impatiently. “He called an hour ago and asked to meet. He said he’s got some information.”

“Oh?” Dirk asks with shameless curiosity. He leans forward expectantly when Farah hesitates and chews at the inside of her lip.

“About Blackwing, actually.”

It’s nothing less than a punch to the gut. The restaurant suddenly feels too small, too warm, too loud--Dirk breaks out into a sweat and tries not to shut down, but judging by Todd’s concerned expression he probably does a pretty piss poor job of it. He looks closely around them, as if he could pick out Riggins or Ken Adams watching from one of the corners of the restaurant.

Farah takes a deep breath. “Since this concerns you guys--especially you, Dirk--do you want to join me?”

Dirk turns helplessly to Todd, who has a soft blend of sympathy and anxiety on his face. After a moment, Todd answers when it’s obvious Dirk won’t. “We probably should hear what he has to say.”

“Yes. Of course. Very logical, Todd.” Dirk swallows hard as Todd slides out of the booth. He considers bolting for the door in a moment of madness, but in the end he stands and follows on Todd’s heels as they make for Ed’s booth.

His hands only shake a little bit.

◈ ◈ ◈

Farah finds it a bit awkward, being crammed into one side of the just-barely-large-enough booth. She’d slid in across from Eddie only to be joined by Dirk, who promptly pulled Todd down beside him. Her brother is watching them from the other side of the table with a look of derision, and her appreciation for ‘being one of the freaks’ suddenly feels hollow. For a moment she hates herself for wishing that her friends were just a _bit_ less weird.

But it is what it is.

She and Eddie order their meals with an overly energetic waiter, and Dirk and Todd are left to watch uncomfortably as the siblings eat. Farah tries to come to terms with the odds of her friends selecting this particular restaurant at this particular time, but then realizes that she probably should have seen it coming.

The universe and it’s inconvenient, strange designs...

She’s about a quarter of the way through her enchilada when she and Eddie finish with the stiff, empty pleasantries. Eddie broaches the subject of Blackwing with his usual aplomb.

“They’ve popped back up on the CIA’s budget reports,” he informs them abruptly. “Haven’t heard a thing for months, but now money’s being drawn from auxiliary accounts and dumped into Blackwing’s pocket.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Todd asks. Eddie barely spares him a glance, but he answers the question all the same.

“It means that someone from above has given approval for the revival of the division.”

“So, it was actually deactivated for a while?” Farah asks slowly. “We wondered about that. Blackwing had the chance to approach me in the hospital in Montana, but they never did. Not to mention the fact that our business literally has Dirk’s name plastered across it… We haven’t exactly been in hiding.”

Eddie takes a long draw from his beer. “I can’t claim to have the details. Blackwing never completely shut down, but they were barred from requesting funds for ops or taking direct action, as far as I can tell.”

“But now,” Dirk starts, but his voice is thin and he has to pause and try again. “But now they’re back. They can take ‘direct action’ again.”

Farah frowns and places a comforting hand on Dirk’s arm, and he throws her a wide-eyed look of gratitude. From Dirk’s other side Todd leans in until they’re pressed even closer together in the booth. She feels Dirk relax a bit, nestled safely between them, and she’s surprised at the tug of protectiveness in her chest.

Eddie, having watched the whole exchange, looks vaguely uncomfortable. “That’s usually what it means when this sort of thing happens.”

“What else can you tell us?”

“Not much.”

Farah barely bats an eye at that. “You didn’t fly out here just to tell me that, Eddie.”

“Not exactly,” he agrees with annoyance. “There’s a conference I need to attend in Tacoma tomorrow. But I came to Seattle to warn you, Farah. If Blackwing’s active again, you’re likely going to be a target. Of what, I can’t say. But these people have a lot of power and long memories, and all that Bergsberg shit wasn’t that long ago.”

Farah bristles at that, but she isn’t stupid--she knows he isn’t wrong. “And, what? You want me to go back with you?”

She feels Dirk tense up at the prospect, but she doesn’t break the hard stare she’s giving her brother.

“No. You didn’t come home after the dust settled with the FBI, not even to pay your respects to Dad. I don’t expect you to come now.”

Ah. There it is. The familiar specter of shame that’s dogged almost every interaction she’s had with her brother since she was fifteen. “Eddie, I’ve... been meaning to.”

“But?” he prompts harshly.

“Things have been complicated,” she offers weakly.

“Besides, it’s not like he’s going anywhere,” Dirk suddenly chimes in, and only seems to recognize the faux pa when Todd makes a choking sound in response. “Er, I mean--That... came out wrong.”

“No, you’re not… wrong,” Farah reassures Dirk awkwardly, after a solid ten seconds of silence. “I’ll pay my respects in my own time, in my own way.”

Eddie’s got a strange look on his face, like maybe he’s regretting having made that phone call to her, like maybe he wouldn’t really mind if she was grabbed and given some time to think about her life choices in a CIA black-site for a while. He clears his throat and looks around for their conspicuously absent waiter.

“Can you at least tell us if we’re under surveillance?” Farah asks in a low voice, but before Eddie can answer Todd makes a wet noise in the back of his throat and scrambles out of the booth, stumbling off in the direction of the restrooms. Dirk’s off like a shot after him, and Farah’s left to gape after them. She has an idea of what’s happening but she can’t exactly follow them into the men’s room.

Well, she could, if she had to. But Dirk’s got it covered--the man’s nothing less than the equivalent of a helicopter parent when it comes to Todd’s wellbeing, and while he was alarmingly incompetent she did trust him to look after their friend.

She turns to find Eddie watching her. “Your friends are...”

“Interesting?” Farah offers. She takes a deep breath in, and with it comes the reek of old oil and the cold remains of her dinner.

“I was going to say ‘strange’,” Eddie replies, his voice rough with disapproval. “Farah--is this really how you want to live your life?”

She finds herself playing with the scraps of a straw wrapper. It’s somehow comforting to rip the tiny paper into increasingly tinier pieces. “Is this what I pictured it would be like? Of course not. But, this _is_ what my life has become and I, I don’t know, I’ve come to terms with that.”

Eddie looks skeptical and she continues before he can interrupt. “When Lydia went missing, when Patrick was killed, when I had been kidnapped by a pack of insane cultists--thought I was going to die. And I had so many regrets.” She’s got a little pile of straw wrapper scraps now; she thinks it looks a bit like a miniature mountain, complete with a dusting of white snow. “I had never amounted to what Dad wanted for me. For what I wanted for myself. I wasn’t a police officer, a soldier, I wasn’t _anything_.”

“Farah--”

“And I kept thinking that if I survived, if I got out of that room, I’d figure it all out. I’d be the person I wanted to be. The person I was supposed to be.” Farah takes a tentative sip from her glass of water, trying to sort out her thoughts. “And then Dirk and Todd happened. They saved my life, Eddie. They saved Lydia.”

“And a bunch of good cops died in the process.”

“‘Good’ is a debatable descriptor for most of them,” she counters bitterly. She finally meets her brother’s eyes, but his expression is closed off. “ _Two_ of them were good men, good detectives. And it wasn’t our fault they died. But the rest--look, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that no, this isn’t where I thought I would end up. But it is where I belong.”

He meets her gaze steadily, searching her face, and she doesn’t know if he finds what he’s looking for but he pulls out his wallet and lays three twenties on the table.

“If you say so,” he concedes with a tone that doesn’t actually concede much. His face is scrunched up with disappointment. “You know I just want what’s best for you, Farah. And to answer your question, I have no idea who Blackwing is watching. But it’s probably safe to assume that Dirk Gently is on their list. Which means you’re going to stay on their radar, if you insist on sticking close to him.”

That sounds about right.

“Just…” he starts, then frowns and adjusts the stiff collar of his dress shirt. “Just watch your back, Farah.”

“I will.”

“And call me if you need me. I’m only a phone call and a five hour flight away.”

Farah aches at the teasing in his voice; it reminds her of a time before he did more than just _tolerate_ her. Her throat feels a little tight she when says, “thank you,” and stands. Eddie follows her example and there’s an awkward moment where she thinks he might hug her.

Instead, he clasps her shoulder for a moment and repeats, “call me if you get in over your head,” and then he’s pulling on his jacket and walking away.

Farah lingers for a moment, lost with the longing that things had been different between them.

She searches for her absent companions outside after fruitlessly knocking on the men’s room, and it’s grown dark but it only takes her a moment to find them huddled close together near the corner of the restaurant. If she wasn’t familiar with Dirk’s complete and utter social incompetence--which was somehow exaggerated when it came to Todd’s personal space--she would think they looked nothing short of intimate. She also thinks Todd would probably hate that thought.

It’s only when she’s closer that she sees that Dirk is supporting Todd with an awkward hand on the back, and her amusement freezes over.

“You okay?” she asks when she reaches them, trying to examine Todd by the light cast from the restaurant’s window. His face is pinched with pain but she can’t discern much else.

“Yeah, sorry. Just needed a bit of air.”

Farah glances at Dirk, whose own face is screwed up with the effort of not loudly contradicting their friend. He’s all but vibrating with the need to tell her what happened and Farah admires his restraint--even though she does actually wants him to blurt it out.

“Did you have an attack?” she presses, because she knows from experience that Todd finds it harder to avoid direct questions.

“A--small one, yeah.” Todd shifts abruptly away from Dirk, who lets his hand fall limply back to his side. A spasm of hurt crosses the detective’s face, but he gets it under control quickly enough that Farah could convince herself it was never there in the first place. Todd aims his eyes at the parking lot behind her and clears his throat. “Sorry for interrupting. Did your brother have anything else to say?”

“Not really. He doesn’t know if we’re being watched, but he thinks it’s safer to assume so. And I agree.”

Todd nods, eyes glazed, and Dirk shifts restlessly from foot to foot, shooting cryptic looks at the other man every few seconds. Farah glances between them and wonders if she’s missed something.

“You guys want a ride?” she asks neutrally.

“Oh, god, yes,” Dirk enthuses obnoxiously. “I’m freezing to death!”

Todd rolls his eyes benignly. Farah smiles and lets them lead the way to her car, but she can’t help but stare when she notices that Dirk’s hand has found its way to Todd’s back again.

She wonders if the sudden tactile neediness has anything to do with the news about Blackwing and if that’s something she should be asking about.

But then Dirk launches into his theory about Todd’s missing possessions, and by the time he finishes talking about the ghost of her previous employer and gets around to explaining who and what Dennis is, they’re all comfortably tucked into her car and she’s more than happy to stop thinking for a while.

◈ ◈ ◈

"And so, we’ll get three Projects in one fell swoop," Ken explains to the voice on the other end of the secure line, summing up the last of his mission objectives. There’s a pregnant pause but he doesn’t let it faze him--he’s confident in the logistics.

 _"It's risky, abducting civilians,"_ comes the slow, carefully calculated reply, but they both know she doesn't much care about that risk. The CIA has covered up worse. A lot worse. _"Just do your best to make sure that bodies don't drop on our streets."_

"Yes, ma'am," he agrees, somehow unsurprised but very much relieved that the possibility of collateral damage was implicit. The last thing he wanted was more bloodshed, and his soldiers were well trained, but accidents did happen. It was likely inevitable that a Secondary would do something stupid and catch a bullet or broken skull for it, eventually. But as long as the Primary didn’t find out...

Well, all would be well.

He waits for Wilson to hang up on him, and then he calls Priest to share the good news. Priest picks up on the second ring.

“Operation Idun is a go,” Ken states smoothly and without preamble. “You know what to do.”

Priest gives a low chuckle, and it crackles ominously through the connection.

_“You got it, boss.”_

◈ ◈ ◈

Todd feels his face tug into a smile as Dirk sends Farah off with enthusiastic waving, his arm still wagging back and forth even after her car’s gone around the corner and out of sight. Dirk turns around before Todd can wipe the affectionate look off of his face, but the momentary embarrassment of being caught smiling is worth it when Dirk’s face lights up in response.

The taller man immediately steps into his space and launches into a debrief of their bizarre dinner date with Farah’s brother, and Todd tolerates it until the night air crawls in against his skin. As much as he wants to indulge Dirk’s seemingly endless string of complaints, Todd’s terrified at the prospect of the cold triggering another attack. He tries to find a diplomatic way to tell Dirk to shut up and go to bed, but he clues into the frantic edge in his friend’s voice before he can commit to anything.

With a jolt of guilt Todd realizes that Dirk’s stalling.

And suddenly it makes perfect sense--of course Dirk didn’t want to crawl back to his lonely apartment, not with the news about Blackwing hanging over his head. And, if Todd allowed himself a rare moment of honesty, he didn’t really want to let Dirk out of his sight, either. They’d had enough kidnappings lately, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle another cross-country search.

“Dirk--”

“And what was _with_ his attitude? It was like he was pretending that we weren’t even there,” Dirk scoffs.

“Sure, but--”

“Would it have killed him to have been just a _bit_ more friendly?” Dirk steamrolls on, eyes growing wide with panic the harder Todd tries to interrupt. It makes Todd’s chest hurt a little. Dirk obviously expects to be dismissed.

“Want to crash at my place?” Todd cuts in when he has to stop to take a breath. Dirk freezes, mouth agape and eyes suspiciously bright, and Todd watches as the other man schools his features into his best attempt at nonchalance.

“Good idea, Todd,” he replies in a surprisingly steady voice, and for a moment Todd thinks he’s going to go on to give some excuse or ridiculous rationale for staying over, but Dirk just bites his lip and waits.

Feeling uncomfortable, Todd nods and starts up the stairs, trying his best not to berate himself for nearly banishing Dirk to a night of misery. Dirk follows so closely Todd can practically feel his breath ghost across the back of his neck, and other man turns and locks the door behind them as soon as they make it into Todd’s apartment. Todd stares without really meaning to, and frowns as his friend tries to pretend he’s not inspecting the tiny studio apartment for CIA agents.

Todd can’t think of a single thing to say, except: “I’ll take the couch.”

“No, don’t be ridiculous!” comes the immediate protest, complete with earnest hand flapping. “I’m quite content with the sofa, Todd. Even the floor is fine, actually.”

“What? Dirk, come on. I crashed on the couch all the time when Amanda stayed over. And no one’s sleeping on the floor.”

“No, really, Todd. Very kind of you to offer, but with your--it’s fine, really!”

Todd takes in Dirk’s pale face and fluttering hands and gives up. He’s slowly learning to pick his battles.

They get ready for bed in near silence, taking turns changing and brushing their teeth in the bathroom. When Dirk finally settles beneath the old blanket on the couch, he’s watching Todd closely and he looks positively ill at ease, and Todd suddenly thinks that maybe this anxiety has less to do with Blackwing and more to do with feeling unwelcome. He’s brainstorming a way to be warm and reassuring, because that sort of shit doesn’t exactly come naturally to him, when Dirk opens his mouth and derails his entire train of thought.

“It’s good of you to ask for help, Todd.”

“I--what?”

Dirk fixes him with a peculiar look, like it should be _obvious_ and he’s vaguely concerned for Todd’s mental capacity. It’s an expression Todd has become painfully familiar with. He sits down on the edge of his bed and frowns at the other man, who shrinks away from the scrutiny.

“Dirk, what the hell are you talking about? Help for what?”

“Your… pararibulitis?” Dirk answers in a small voice. He pulls the blanket up a little higher, like he’s hoping to hide behind it.

Todd’s violently embarrassed. “Dirk--that’s not why I--what does that even mean? Help with--how would you help with that?”

“Todd, you’ve had two attacks in the last five hours,” his friend says slowly. Todd’s stomach turns and he’s suddenly irrationally angry. He takes a deep breath, and then another, and still he doesn’t know how to respond without sounding like a complete bastard. “I just meant--I’m glad you asked me to stay over.”

“That’s not why I--you know what, nevermind. It’s fine. Just go to sleep, Dirk.”

“Todd--”

He ignores the plaintive warble in Dirk’s voice and stands to flip off the light. Even then it’s not completely dark--he still hasn’t replaced his blinds after the Rowdy 3’s shenanigans and the streetlight casts a sickly yellow splash of color across the far wall. But it’s enough to bring an end to the conversation.

Todd settles on the bed, rolls over to face the wall, and grits his teeth.

He hears Dirk shift uncomfortably, and he thinks it sounds like the other man opens his mouth a few times like he’s trying to force words out, but in the end there’s only the occasional sound of a car passing in the street below. Todd closes his eyes, disappointed that he’s somehow still the same asshole he's always been; he desperately wants to apologize, but he can't beat down the sticky mortification. _He_ was the one who was supposed to be comforting Dirk, not the other way around.

How the hell did Dirk--what exactly did he think was--

Todd breathes out slowly and tells himself to calm down.

At first, he hadn't minded when Dirk brought up his pararibulitis. It was to be expected, after all. But Dirk's concern over it had nearly derailed their entire case in Bergsberg and it wasn't proving to be any less of a distraction for the detective in Seattle. It had started with pitying looks every time Todd popped a pill and evolved into following Todd everywhere possible, as though he couldn’t be trusted to have a moment to himself. And then the barrage of check-ins started--a never ending stream of ‘are you okay, Todd?’ all day, every day.

But the breaking point had been when Dirk had suggested that Todd stay behind and ‘rest’ when a seemingly mundane case turned gruesome. It was then that he realized Dirk was nothing less than preoccupied with fussing over him, and that he’d be kicked out of the agency for ‘his own protection’ if he didn’t put a stop to it all.

Not to mention the fact that it was _beyond_ embarrassing to have a hot mess like Dirk look at _him_ like he’s about to drop dead at the first stiff breeze--

Todd stops himself. 

He tells himself that Dirk was just worried, and no matter how humiliating that is Todd knows he's lucky to have someone who cares about him.

It’s certainly more than he deserves.

It takes him nearly five minutes but eventually he gathers his willpower and mutters, “goodnight, Dirk,” to the wall. 

Behind him, Dirk heaves a sigh of relief and sinks down to lie flat on the couch, and then there’s a timid whisper of, “Goodnight, Todd. Sorry.”

Todd’s face heats up with shame. He squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself he’ll be a good friend in the morning, but somehow it doesn’t make him feel any better.

He eventually falls asleep to the refrain of _‘you’re such a goddamn asshole’_ playing in his head.


	4. Acceptance Is The First Step (To A Sleepover)

Priest slouches in a rental car and watches as Project Icarus and Todd Brotzman emerge from the Ridgley building bundled up against the cold morning. Icarus bounces around Brotzman, gesturing wildly with his arms until he slams one against the side of a streetlamp. Priest can hear Brotzman's sharp bark of laughter even at a distance. Icarus rubs his arm woefully and falls into step beside his shorter companion, only slightly subdued.

Priest considers getting out and following but his disfigured face puts some limits his recon abilities. Instead, he turns to the dark-eyed agent in the passenger seat, who fiddles absently with his radio and watches the Asset and the assistant start down the street. Priest appreciates the sharp, hungry expression on his face--it tells him the man has drive, something Blackwing was sorely lacking in lately. 

The other recruit assigned to the operation hadn’t even shown up yet.

"Do you want me to tail them, sir?"

Priest chews it over. He knows exactly where the pair are going and it wasn't worth the risk of following too closely in a car, but the relatively new recruit had shown potential. It might be a good exercise for him.

"Aw hell, why not?” he intones slowly. “Just keep your distance, Bishop."

"Right, sir."

Priest nods and the other man darts out of the car with coiled eagerness. He's not young, maybe somewhere around Priest’s own age, and dull in every conventional way. Average looks. Not tall, not short. Not especially bright, but not a complete moron, either. In other words, dreadfully boring but well suited to disappearing in a crowd.

Priest watches as the agent does just that--the other man shoves his hands in his pockets, slouches his shoulders, and steps into the thin stream of tourists that flow along the opposite sidewalk.

Priest pulls out his phone and taps out a quick message to the boss. _[All good with Icarus. No sign of Lamia or Incubus.]_ He thumbs the 'send' button and starts to tuck the device back into his jacket, not expecting a reply over a simple status update, but his phone quickly vibrates.

 _[Stay sharp]_ , Ken's message reads, and Priest frowns at the vague warning. But he’s not concerned. Icarus was probably the easiest person on the planet to tail. Lamia was likely close, too, and the Brotzman sister would either show up before or after the deed was done. 

And where Amanda Brotzman went, the Rowdy 3 followed.

◈ ◈ ◈

“I _detest_ Tuesdays.”

Todd grunts in a way that he hopes passes as agreement, tossing his coat on his desk and making a beeline for their decidedly fancy coffee machine. It was one of the first things that Farah bought for the office and Todd has thanked her just about every day since--if only in his head. God knew he needed it after a long night spent with Dirk shifting restlessly on his couch.

“Most people hate Mondays,” Farah chimes in without looking up from her computer. 

“Ha! How pedestrian,” Dirk proclaims, and then proceeds to launch into an in-depth analysis of why Mondays could at least begin with optimism but that one _knew_ the week was going to be bad and boring by the time Tuesday rolled around. Todd listens just enough to throw in an “uh-huh” and the rarer but passable “yeah” as Dirk attempts to provoke Farah into sending them away by the sheer virtue of being annoying. It’s worked before, but she’s grown wise to the tactic.

She retaliates to the attempted manipulation by dropping a stack of blank insurance forms on Dirk’s desk, as well as a glare at where Dirk’s propped his feet up on the expensive mahogany he’d insisted on. “For the Duckworth case. Finish these by noon and you can leave early.”

Dirk perks up considerably but Todd’s not stupid enough to think that the man’s going to have the follow-through to accomplish it, so he wakes up his laptop and begins sorting through the emails they’d received overnight. It’s not much--two spam emails that didn’t get caught by the filter, an offer to have their business listed in the local paper, and two potential cases that he skims and then flags for them all to review later. A typical ‘I think my husband is cheating on me’ and a somewhat less typical ‘I think my employee is stealing from me’. His instinct is that neither are Their Type of Thing but he’s been wrong in the past. 

He sips at his coffee and risks a glance at Dirk, who has taken to slowly spinning around in his chair with a pen propped up on his upper lip. He looks like he’s concentrating pretty hard on keeping it there and less so on the paperwork scattered in front of him. Todd sighs and lets his last hope of leaving early evaporate entirely. 

“Todd,” comes a tentative summon ten minutes later. 

“Yeah?”

“You know, you’re just ever so excellent at these forms--”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

Todd levels a flat look at him. “You were going to say that I’m so good at the paperwork Farah gave _you_ that I should go ahead and do them, just to be sure you don’t do them wrong.”

“Well. It is true.”

“It is,” Todd agrees. “But I’m still not going to do them for you.”

Dirk huffs and stops spinning when the pen drops to the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at the local news,” Todd answers slowly, suspicious at the abrupt redirection of the conversation. The other man only smiles serenely back.

“Searching for oddities? An excellent idea! Anything that might be case-worthy?”

“No,” Todd admits. “Not yet.”

“In that case, perhaps we should focus on your case.”

Farah’s pen abruptly stops scrabbling away at whatever she’s working on, and Todd stifles a groan of dismay when she looks up. 

“What case?” she asks, glancing between them.

“Todd’s case! His missing guitar case, to be more precise. And his shampoo bottle, and sheets, and--”

“Right,” she interrupts before he can pick up steam.

“Do try to keep up, Farah. We were _just_ talking about this last night!” Dirk tells her sternly. Todd watches with amusement as Farah’s hand clenches around her pen.

“You never said it was a _case_ , Dirk.”

“Didn’t I? Well, we certainly think it has case potential, don’t we, Todd?”

“Don’t bring me into this,” he complains. “I never actually agreed to that.”

Dirk looks comically betrayed. “You suggested spirit boards!”

Farah turns to him in surprise and Todd feels his face heat up. “I didn’t--I told you, that wasn’t--that wasn’t a real suggestion.” He shoots Farah a flustered look. “I was being sarcastic.”

“We’re going to go to a store called Toys ‘R Us tonight, Farah,” Dirk says as if he hadn’t heard Todd. “For the ouija board, they sell them there. In both classic wood and plastic pink, actually. We’re probably going to stick with the classic wood, but we’ll decide for sure once we get there.”

“Wait, what? We’re going today?” 

“Yes, Todd! It’s not like we have anything better to do, now do we?”

Todd and Farah simultaneously look at the very much unfinished insurance documents on Dirk’s desk. He follows their gaze and frowns. “Surely figuring out why Todd’s possession are vanishing is more important than this.”

Farah opens her mouth to argue, but to Todd’s immense surprise she stops and adopts a thoughtful expression. Dirk catches on immediately and decides to push his luck. “After all, it could be an indication that _someone_ has been inside of his flat. Whether it’s a ghost, or some ‘punk kid’, as Todd so eloquently put it--”

“I did say that,” Todd tells Farah, who makes an obvious effort to refrain from rolling her eyes. 

“Yes, you did, Todd. Anyway! Something strange is happening, even if it’s just Todd sleepwalking and tossing his junk out the window. And that can be dangerous, too. I’ve been reading up on it.”

“You have?” Todd squawks, offended. Dirk looks at him in a way that doesn’t quite match the flippant tone of the conversation and Todd’s taken aback. The other man looks genuinely concerned, which is never a good thing these days. 

“It’s not likely. But it is possible, Todd.”

“I have to agree, actually,” Farah says reluctantly. “It makes more sense than it being a vengeful spirit, anyway.”

“Like I said before, it’s probably just some kid!” Todd says with some heat. “I’m not--I’ve never sleepwalked. Dirk, you of all people know how easy it is to break into my apartment--”

“Yes,” Dirk muses with a frown, “we should probably address your truly deplorable security standards.”

“New window locks wouldn’t hurt,” Farah says diplomatically. “But still--Todd, you live alone, and you’ve lived alone for a while now. You can’t be sure that you’ve never sleepwalked before.”

“We slept in the same motel rooms for two months, Farah! I think you would have noticed if I was getting up and throwing stuff away in the middle of the night.”

“It’s possible you’ve just started!” Dirk tells him with way too much enthusiasm, eyes wide and hands flapping. “Onset can occur suddenly in adults, prompted by a number of things, such as stress, fever, sleep deprivation--but the most likely cause is your medication.” Dirk pauses at the incredulous stares they send his way. “What? I told you I’ve been reading up on it.”

Farah looks impressed.

“Okay, hold on--that’s--we’re getting off track here,” Todd protests, ignoring the remark about his medication with some effort. Dirk wheels his chair over as obnoxiously as humanly possible.

“We’ve got to pursue different avenues of investigation, Todd. It’s part of the process, as you should well know by now!”

“Wait, now we investigate things? What happened to ‘I just sort of wander around and the case gets solved’?”

“But even if it’s unlikely, don’t you want to know for sure?” Farah interrupts before Dirk can launch into a tangent, tapping her pen thoughtfully against her chin. “I certainly would.”

Todd looks between the two of them and struggles to form an argument, but he has to admit that it’s _possible_ \--certainly more so than Patrick Spring’s ghost having a burning desire to take his crap. 

“I guess,” he says, sounding more petulant than he means to. But Dirk beams at him and Todd finds himself begrudgingly disarmed. 

“Acceptance is a great first step, Todd! Now, how should we go about testing our theory?”

“I--”

“I propose a sleepover!” Dirk barrels forward, his cheeks pink with excitement. 

“What are you, five years old?” Todd grouses. He looks to Farah for backup but her brow is furrowed like she’s trying to piece something together, and he doesn’t like the implication of that at all. He swings back around to Dirk, who has begun to look a little uncertain, likely remembering what a bastard Todd had been the night before. 

Maybe this was a chance for Todd to make up for that.

He’s not sure why neither of them have mentioned it to Farah. It’s not like they’ve never crashed in the same room before, and she certainly would have understood Todd’s initial reasoning for the invitation. But Dirk hasn’t said a word about it since they left the Ridgely and Todd finds his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth at the thought of being the one to bring it up.

“It’s not a bad solution,” Farah acknowledges, but the frown she’s wearing seems to say otherwise. 

“Of course it’s not. And since I live in the same building, it only makes sense for me to be the one to monitor your sleeping habits, Todd.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?” he sighs. But having an extra person around might mean the difference between catching some shitty teenager breaking in red-handed or losing another set of sheets. 

He really doesn’t have that many to spare.

“Dirk, maybe Todd would be more comfortable if I stayed over,” Farah offers slowly, like she’s being very careful with her wording, but it clearly offends Dirk every bit as much as she thought it would.

“And why is that?” the man asks with just a bit more force than necessary. Todd looks back and forth between them with confusion. “Todd is perfectly comfortable with me staying at his flat. Aren’t you, Todd?”

“Er, yeah. It’s fine.”

“I just meant that Todd and I spent a lot of time together, back when we were looking for you,” Farah tries again. “And I’m used to staying up all night. I had a lot of late shifts when I was still working for Patrick.” 

Dirk deflates, and he looks so put-out that Todd ludicrously feels the need to come to his defense. “Really, Farah, it’s fine,” he says, and he’s immediately rewarded with a blinding smile from Dirk. Todd’s stomach squirms with guilt. “Dirk’s right, there’s no reason for you to have to go back and forth across town just to sit around my apartment while I sleep. He’s already in the building.”

Said detective looks smug when he turns to Farah in triumph, and Todd is left feeling vaguely uncomfortable at the sudden tension between his two closest friends. He makes a mental note to ask Farah about it later--he’d never get a straight answer from Dirk. 

“Alright.” Farah holds her hands up in defeat. “Just don’t complain about being tired when you don’t get any sleep, Todd.”

Todd nods his head stiffly in acknowledgement--she would hopefully never know just how close she was to describing the last twelve hours of his life. But tonight _would not_ be a repeat of the one before. 

Dirk wheels his chair back toward his own desk. “I’ll have you know that I am a perfectly respectable roommate,” he informs them with a haughty sniff.

“If you say so,” Farah surrenders, returning to her paperwork with obvious relief.

“And,” Dirk announces, “I’m sure Mona would be more than happy to come along and be an extra pair of eyes. Wouldn’t you, Mona?”

They all turn in unison to stare at the unremarkable office chair sitting in the corner by the window. The chair gives no indication of having heard the question. Dirk shrugs and then proceeds to do a stellar job of pretending to work on the pile of forms he’d neglected. 

It makes Todd smile for reasons he can’t quite pinpoint.

◈ ◈ ◈

Predictably, they wind up at the office until well after three o’clock. Dirk had attempted to escape for lunch, but Farah had pulled deli sandwiches out of the mini fridge and the detective had had no choice but to catch up on the two weeks worth of paperwork he’d managed to procrastinate on.

Todd reluctantly pulls up the directions to Toys ‘R Us on his phone as Dirk bounces along beside him on the way to the bus stop. Dirk’s been complaining nonstop about how much he needs to get another car, but as of yet he hasn’t mysteriously obtained one and Todd’s not sure if he should be relieved or not. 

“So, Todd. Have you given any more thought to the hot question of the night?”

“Er, the--the what?”

Dirk elbows him affectionately. “The ouija board! We still have to decide--oh!” Dirk interrupts himself, twisting back and forth as he pries his cell phone out of his pants pocket. “Hold on, Todd.”

Todd issues a long-suffering sigh and stands off to the side as Dirk paces back and forth in the narrow space between a shoe store and a mini mart. 

“Yes, _hello_ , Ms. Bates! Thank you _so much_ for returning my call!” Dirk enthuses, smiling cheesily even though the mystery woman on the other end can’t see him. “You got my voicemail?”

There’s a pause as Dirk listens, and then he’s nodding happily. “Yes, wonderful! We would love to meet you as soon as possible!”

Todd frowns, but when Dirk notices he just shoots him a quick wink. It’s a little less than reassuring. 

“Oh… tonight? Actually, l--oh, I see. Well--yes, of course. Could you please text me your address? We’ll head over right away!”

Dirk hangs up a moment later and waves his arms excitedly at Todd, who crosses his own arms and waits. “Todd! You’ll _never_ guess who that was!”

“You’re right about that,” Todd replies dryly. Dirk grabs him by the bicep and gives him a friendly shake, as though to transfer his delight via bodily contact. 

“That was Ms. Bates! She’s the sixty-seven year old widower who lived in your flat before you!”

Todd stiffens, but Dirk’s on a roll and doesn’t seem to notice. He still hasn’t let go of Todd’s arm, either. “You found the previous tenant?”

“Yes, Todd, that is what I just said,” Dirk sighs with mock disappointment, then finally drops his hand in favor of pulling his phone back out in order to copy and paste Ms. Bates’ address into google maps. “Looks like she’s a bit of the way out of the city, we should get going.”

Todd nods but he follows two steps behind as Dirk resumes their route to the bus stop. He tries to tell himself that it’s impressive that Dirk tracked down the old tenant of his apartment on his own, but he’s not exactly happy that Dirk neglected to mention it. 

Or, maybe it’s that he forgot. That would certainly be better than Dirk intentionally leaving him in the dark, whether to feel smart at the big reveal or because Todd’s fear of being left behind is coming true.

He feels guilty for thinking that though, so he’s especially patient as Dirk chatters loudly beside him the entire bus ride. It takes over an hour to reach Ms. Bates’ house--which turns out to be an estate. After a ten minute walk from the bus stop, they stare up the drive in wonder at the sprawling emerald lawn decorated with strange ornaments.

“Are those… branch animals?” Dirk whispers, and Todd isn’t sure which thing to address first--the fact that they were certainly branches sculpted to look like animals, or the fact that Dirk was whispering.

“Yeah, looks like it.”

Dirk shoots him a glance that’s equal parts amazed and incredulous.

“Let’s go, it’s getting dark,” Todd sighs, starting up the driveway.

The detective follows close enough that he bumps into Todd with every other step. “Todd, don’t you think this is odd?”

“Which part? The fact that she lived at a dump like the Ridgely before this, or her choice in lawn decorations?”

Dirk purses his lips thoughtfully. “Both, I suppose. But especially her housing upgrade.”

“I guess she came into some money.”

“ _Highly_ suspicious.”

Cheryl Bates answers her door with an air of regret, and that only gets worse as she looks them up and down. Todd’s in jeans and a red flannel, which is probably acceptable and even expected given that they’re in Seattle, but Dirk’s in top Dirk form--he’s positively an eyesore in his bright red pants and his neon yellow jacket. Ms. Bates’ eyes linger on the detective, who shifts and plasters an uncomfortable smile across his face.

“Come on in,” she eventually says, stepping aside and allowing them to marvel at the marble flooring and crystal chandelier. They get settled in the sitting room and Dirk gushes a little too enthusiastically over the lukewarm tea she serves. 

“So, how can I help you boys? You said in your voicemail that you’re private detectives. What exactly are you investigating?” she asks after a pause extends into an awkward silence. Todd glances at Dirk, who suddenly has a deer-in-the-headlights glaze in his eyes, and he decides to take the lead.

“We were wondering about your time at the Ridgely.”

“That shithole,” she scoffs, then takes a paradoxically dainty sip from her tea cup. “What, someone suing that son of a bitch landlord?”

“Are you talking about Dorian? No, he… passed away recently.”

“What, he finally get shot by one of those Mexican gangbangers he always had hanging around?”

There’s a very uncomfortable beat. “We’re not here about a lawsuit. There’s been a… string of odd events in your old apartment.”

“Odd how?” she asks, finally looking interested.

“Things have been disappearing, but nothing valuable,” Todd clarifies stiffly. “Just everyday household items.”

Ms. Bates blinks at him in surprise, then looks quickly between the both of them. Dirk leans forward and studies her closely.

“Ms. Bates, have you had things go missing lately?”

“Well, yes, actually… But--”

“I knew it!” Dirk exclaims obnoxiously, and Todd doesn’t believe him for a second. “May I ask--what was it that was stolen?”

“One the animal sculptures on my lawn,” she replies, leaning back away from Dirk’s scrutiny. She looks distinctly uncomfortable and just a little bit pissed off. “But this could hardly be connected to your case.”

“Everything is connected.”

Ms. Bates’ frown broadcasts her increasing dismay. “But--”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, by the way. What sort of lawn animal was it?”

“A… tiger, but really, this has nothing to do with the Ridgely!”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Dirk informs her with a smile. Todd groans and fights the urge to bury his face in his hands. “I am a detective, after all.”

“There’s no need for that. My son has already filed a police report--”

“Your _son_? Did you mention that you had a son?” Dirk interrupts. Their host glances at the front door, but if she thinks Dirk would ever pick up on such a subtle hint she’s decidedly wrong. 

“No--”

“Tell me, Ms. Bates, what is his name?”

“It’s… Carl.”

“Hm,” Dirk muses, rubbing his chin in a way Todd assumes is supposed to look introspective. “Ms. Bates, may I ask, how in the world did you afford to move from the Ridgely into this estate?”

The woman’s mouth pops open and Todd hisses Dirk’s name in warning, but he ignores them both.

“I mean, come on, the Ridgely is hardly a luxury complex,” the detective continues obliviously. Todd glances back and forth between them but he can’t figure out how to derail Dirk’s train of thought in time. “This is a very impressive step up. But it _is_ rather suspicious, if I may say so.”

“Dirk--” Todd starts, but he shuts up when Ms. Bates stands, her face taut with anger. 

“I’d like to ask you both to leave now,” she demands with steel in her voice. Todd bites his lip and stands compliantly, but Dirk’s left blinking up at her in confusion. 

“Ms. Bates--”

“Leave, or I’ll call the police!”

“That’s _hardly_ necessary--” Dirk protests, but Todd grabs him by the wrist and leads him away before the woman can follow through on her threat. The door slams behind them on the way out but Todd doesn’t let go until they make it down the expansive drive and hit the sidewalk. He drops Dirk’s arm and sighs. 

“Todd, _ouch!_ You don’t need to drag me around like I’m some sort of child!”

“What was that back there?” Todd demands, rounding on him. 

Dirk’s already got a pout in place. “I was just pointing out the obvious. It _is_ suspicious and I know you think it is, too!”

“Maybe, but why the hell did you tell _her_ that?”

“Well, how else were we supposed to find out, if we didn’t ask?” 

Todd gapes at him, astounded that he even has the capacity to be surprised at Dirk’s deficient social graces anymore. Dirk doesn’t seem to clue into the mood, though. He’s peering back toward the property behind them, even though it’s too dark to see much. 

“And isn’t it just so interesting? Why in the world would someone steal a lawn decoration shaped like a tiger?”

“I don’t know,” Todd mutters, too exhausted to lecture. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Yes, excellent idea! To the bus it is.”

Todd follows with a scowl on his face, as if that would be enough to convey his annoyance at the situation and Dirk’s behavior. But Dirk’s too wound up to notice. He’s ranting about the potential market for a branch tiger sculpture, and then about American public transportation, and by the time they reach the city Todd’s head is pounding. He leans against the window and lets his friend drone on, lulled by the hum of the bus, and he’s nearly asleep when Dirk suddenly exclaims, “oh!” and leaps up.

Todd sits up, alarmed, as the bus slows to a halt. He thinks that maybe they missed their stop but they’re nowhere near it. He looks up at Dirk, who’s tapping away at his phone and not paying any attention to him.

“Dirk, what--”

“Not now, Todd. I’ve had a revelation! I’ll see you later!”

Todd starts to get up but Dirk’s already bouncing down the aisle and then he’s down the steps and walking away. Todd considers chasing after him but a wave of anger keeps him glued to the 90’s upholstery. The bus chugs back up to speed and he spends the rest of the ride trying to tell himself that this is absolutely normal Dirk behavior.

He can’t quite manage it, though.

He throws himself down on his bed twenty minutes later and stares at his water-stained ceiling, reconsidering his life choices and aching with something that feels like betrayal.

◈ ◈ ◈

Dirk bursts into Todd’s apartment in the early hours of the morning and flips the light on. And he startles his friend badly, if the way the other man flails his way out of bed and onto the floor is any indication. Dirk pauses to apologize and then dumps a bag full of black clothing onto the rumpled sheets.

“Wha--what time is it?”

“Nearly six o’clock,” Dirk chirps, sorting absently through the clothes until he’s laid out two sets, complete with ski masks. Todd gets up to stand at his shoulder, pale-faced and wide-eyed. He turns to Dirk and the detective can feel the force of his glare without even looking. “Also--I’m very sorry that I wasn’t able to sleep over like we agreed. I was unexpectedly quite busy. But never fear, there’s always tonight!”

Todd pointedly ignores that. He’s still staring down at the clothes, and after a moment he drops his shoulders and sighs. “Do I want to know?”

“We’re going to break into Cheryl Bates’ house!”

His assistant makes a choking noise and splutters his way through a, “what the hell?” while Dirk picks up the smaller charcoal cable-knit sweater and holds it out. Todd doesn’t take it.

“Dirk--why? Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’ve got to figure out what she’s hiding. As we now know, she certainly isn’t going to _tell_ us!” He’s pretty confident with his plan, but he falters at the look on Todd’s face. He’d nearly forgotten that expression--mistrust. Todd hasn’t worn it since they rescued Lydia Spring.

It makes Dirk’s stomach hurt. 

But Todd must see something in his face and take pity on him, because he reaches out and takes the sweater, eyes downcast. For a moment there’s tense silence, and then Todd clears his throat. 

“I don’t think we should wear this stuff. Especially the masks. It’s, like, burglary 101. You don’t go to a burglary dressed like a burglar.”

“Ah, excellent point, Todd,” Dirk concedes, willing to say nearly anything to erase that glum expression from the smaller man’s eyes. He doesn’t actually agree--black was quite good for hiding in dark places, after all. But perhaps it _would_ be light by the time they got there and--

“But… actually, Dirk, you probably should wear something less conspicuous.” 

“What? What do you mean? What’s conspicuous about my outfit?” 

“Aside from the neon blue jacket, or…?” 

Dirk glances down at himself, having forgotten about that. He had dressed in the dark after managing to get about three hours of sleep. He’d left Todd on the bus to go shopping and then spent hours pacing, deep in thought, because there was a lot to worry about these days--Todd’s condition alone was enough to keep him up at night, but now, with Blackwing... “I’m sure it’ll be fine. We should get going! Cheryl said she’d be gone all morning.”

“She did?”

“Yes, when she first called me, that’s why we had to delay going to Toys ‘R Us! Now hurry up, we can’t waste this opportunity.”

The look Todd sends him is nothing less than pleading, but to Dirk’s surprise he doesn’t protest. Dirk watches anxiously as Todd gathers up a pair of jeans and the new black sweater and retreats to the bathroom to change. Dirk considers making him coffee but decides against it; he does, however, grab a banana off of the counter and pull a can of Coke from the fridge. He brandishes both proudly when Todd steps out of the restroom. The other man stares at him like he’s lost his mind but he takes the offerings all the same.

“Er. Thanks. I guess.”

“You’re very welcome, Todd. We can get a real breakfast on the way to the office after our investigation.”

“Okay,” Todd says with resignation. Dirk finds himself badly missing his friend’s usual enthusiasm, but he supposes the early hour and prospect of law-breaking could put a damper on anyone’s mood. “What exactly are you hoping to find?”

Dirk ushers him out of the flat and then locks the door behind them, because Todd’s got a banana in one hand and a soda in the other. “I’m not entirely certain. But I’m thinking that there is a real possibility that we’ll find your missing things there.”

“Really?” 

“Really,” Dirk confirms, and then steers Todd by the shoulders toward the red Subaru he’d rented the night before. Todd digs his heels in for a moment in surprise--or perhaps fear, given how often he complains about Dirk’s driving--but he obediently climbs into the passenger seat after a moment of solemn contemplation. If he mutters something darkly beneath his breath, Dirk pretends not to hear it. 

“Eat your banana, Todd,” Dirk instructs cheerfully, clicking his seatbelt into place. “Something tells me you’re going to need your energy.”

“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so, so much for the kudos and comments! They're lovely, and it might be pathetic but they're also extraordinarily motivating to someone as lazy as I am. 
> 
> Anyway, this story is just getting started and I hope you enjoy what's to come! (Bonus points to anyone who catches the possibly obscure not-Dirk-Gently-related reference in this chapter)


	5. Echoes In The Wall

"Of _course!_ "

"Dirk--"

"I knew it. I just _knew_ it! Mrs. Bates' son _is_ involved!"

"Dirk, please," Todd wheezes, "let's get out of here."

Dirk turns to his assist-friend in surprise, seemingly unfazed by the claustrophobic confines of the crawl space in between the walls of Cheryl Bates' estate. Todd's not so forgiving of the tight squeeze--or the six layers of dust in his nose, for that matter. 

"Why, Todd, we can’t leave yet!" Dirk gasps, a teasing crinkle of disappointment in his face. "We haven't even explored the house! What if your stuff is in the next room? Or the one after that?"

Todd grunts, straining to listen as Carl Bates' car roars to life somewhere outside. They had just managed to break in--if you could call finding the back door unlocked ‘breaking in’--when Ms. Bates’ forty year old son had stumbled downstairs. The fact he lived there too had caught them off guard and they’d barely hidden in time. 

"Fine, whatever, then let's explore before he comes back," he groans, willing to surrender a few hours to nosing around if it meant _getting out of the damn wall_. 

Dirk brightens at his acquiescence and then wiggles between Todd and the wall in an attempt to squeeze past. His elbow catches Todd in the ribs and the shorter man instinctively gives him a shove, which escalates into a wrestling match as they each try to climb free before the other. 

They emerge from the crawlspace panting and pale with dust, and then stumble out of the pantry they’d hidden in, in which they’d found the opening in the wall--Dirk had insisted on squeezing inside, hoping to overhear Carl talking on the phone in the parlor.

Todd tries to wheeze the dust out of his lungs while the detective straightens out his hair and jacket, pursing his lips as he gazes about the abandoned study. Todd recognizes the expression. It's something like a bloodhound trying to catch a scent, but with a little less huffing and a lot less dignity.

"Well! We've just heard Carl all but admit that he lied about filing a police report for Cheryl’s prized lawn tiger. But how does that connect to the bank robbery?"

"Wait, what--what bank robbery?"

"Oh, Todd. You really should start watching the news," Dirk chides cheekily. "If you had, you'd know that the Waterport Bank on 4th was robbed at gunpoint late last night."

Todd stares, flabbergasted. 

"Uh, okay," he says after it becomes clear Dirk expects him to make an educated guess, squinting as he tries to find what connection the other man has obviously made. Dirk watches him with an air of excitement but Todd deflates after about fifteen seconds of intense thought. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Dirk groans theatrically and gestures around the ornate room. "Come on, Todd, keep up! We find out that the previous tenant of your flat--where things have been disappearing--has _also_ had things go missing, and not _two days later_ a bank is _robbed!_ "

Todd manages not to feel embarrassed when all he comes up with is another reedy, "uhhhh..."

"It's obvious!" Dirk laughs, and Todd does his best not to be rankled by it. He really should be used to this by now, even if the detective _has_ been especially insufferable lately. 

Unsurprisingly, Dirk struts out of the room without another word. Todd sighs and pulls out his pill bottle, downing two tablets dry and calculating his next dose just for the sake of stalling. 

A shrill squeak and subsequent crash send him running into the next room.

◈ ◈ ◈

"Come now, Farah, it's hardly fair to call us _irresponsible_!"

Farah observes him cooly, and she’s doing that thing where she crosses her arms and stares him down until he folds. He doesn't want to fold. He starts to sweat. 

"Okay, nearly being arrested and all that," he gestures dismissively, perching on his desk. "That would have been distinctly not good."

"You broke into someone’s home, Dirk." Her voice is level and dry, like she's talking to a particularly dense child. Dirk squirms. "And if what Todd said is true, there's water damage to half of the house."

"Well, it's not like they don't have the rooms to spare it! That place is _huge_ , Farah!"

"That's not the point," she says, her eyes narrowing. _You know better_ , they seem to say, and Dirk casts his own eyes around for some defense. They land on his assistant, who has been quietly keeping out of the way of Farah's wrath by pretending to do paperwork.

_Smart man,_ Dirk marvels fondly at the back of Todd's head. Farah, meanwhile, is working herself up with the what-ifs, which Dirk prefers to dismiss. 

"You have to think of our reputation, Dirk! How would it look for our agency if you guys were caught breaking and entering and flooding the place? And how _did_ that happen?"

"The details aren't important, Farah. We didn't get caught, and we did get an important clue. Right, Todd?"

Todd spins his chair around, wide-eyed and clearly caught off guard. "Uh. Yeah?"

"Right, exactly," Dirk chirps, but his cheer dims a bit as he notices evidence of strain on Todd’s face. Maybe he hadn’t just been avoiding a lecture after all. 

Farah sighs and throws her arms up in defeat, retreating to her own area of the office to grumble to herself about protocol. Dirk takes the opportunity to sit on the edge of Todd’s desk and try to continue the conversation about missing hedgery, but Todd’s not paying attention. Dirk lays a gentle hand on his arm. 

"Are you okay?" he asks as casually as he can manage. 

Todd gives a nod and then aims a tight smile up at Dirk. "Fine," he reassures, but Dirk is getting _far_ too used to this song and dance. Not to mention sick of it. His gaze sweeps over his friend, assessing and calculating. He'd seen Todd take a couple of pills on the breakneck drive back to the office, so he wasn't due for his medication, but... 

Dirk tilts his head, drawing Todd’s attention and immediate ire. "What, Dirk? I said I'm fine."

"Okay," Dirk agrees, standing and rocking on the balls of his feet nervously. Todd had been unusually patient since that awful conversation the night before last, but it was possible that his friend’s goodwill was running thin.

“Okay,” Dirk says again, just for something to say. He pats Todd delicately on the shoulder and strolls casually back to his own desk. He sits and stares down at his computer and tries to focus, but before long he decides that a distraction might prove to be the cure after a long morning of wall-creeping and not-getting-arrested.

"I'm starving," he declares loudly, earning an exasperated smile from Todd. Farah frowns from over a significant stack of files. "Who wants to order pizza?"

“I am actually getting pretty hungry,” Todd admits, much to Farah’s obvious annoyance--it was easy enough for her to shoot down Dirk’s daily demands for free food, but it was harder when Todd got involved. 

“Fine. But you’re paying this time, Dirk.”

“I’m _what_?”

“You can’t charge every meal to the company, Dirk! That’s not how it works!”

“That’s what I keep telling him,” Todd mutters loudly.

“So you do,” Dirk snarks back. “What’s even the _point_ of having a company account if we can’t _use_ it?”

“Dirk--”

“Farah--”

“ _Dirk_ \--”

“I’ll pay, if it means you’ll both shut up,” Todd announces, throwing his hands up in the air and leaning back in his chair. Dirk frowns at him, surprised by the outburst, but Farah merely raises an eyebrow. 

“You’re not getting reimbursed for it, Todd,” she warns, but he shrugs dismissively.

“Some peace and quiet is worth it. What do you want, Dirk?”

Dirk hesitates--Todd paying isn’t the outcome he was hoping for, but would it look weird if he suddenly refused to have any of the pizza he insisted on? He struggles with himself for a moment, then decides to slip a twenty dollar bill into Todd’s couch at the next possible opportunity and smiles.

“Olives, onion, and pineapple, please!”

Todd makes a face but pulls out his phone, presumably to open some sort of pizza ordering app thing. “Farah? You want anything?”

“...My usual, please,” comes a sigh from across the room. 

Dirk ducks his head to hide a smile.

◈ ◈ ◈

“Is it always like this?”

Priest turns his head and offers the young woman a smirk. He was glad she had flown into Seattle in time to see Icarus’ latest round of shenanigans. 

“I mean, jesus _christ_ ,” the agent continues from the back seat, too loudly for the confines of a car. “What the fuck was that back there? What did those idiots _do_ to that house?”

“Well now,” Priest drawls, teasing at the syllables. “This is the job when Icarus is involved, Ms. Tran. Get used to witnessing the most spec _tacular_ displays of stupidity you could ever hope to see.”

She mutters something under her breath and Bishop snorts in response, crossing his arms over his chest. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of the doors of the building that’s home to the office of _Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency_ since they followed the red Subaru over, and Priest would admire his tenacity if it wasn’t so misplaced. 

“You can blink,” he informs the other man, who turns to him and does just that, looking baffled. “You’re not gonna miss much. Couldn’t miss Icarus if you tried.”

Tran laughs. “Yeah, with that jacket? Not likely to lose that nutjob even in a crowd.”

Bishop looks between them with a frown. “It’s not Icarus we’re watching.”

Priest stretches leisurely in the driver’s seat. The fake leather creaks with the motion. “Sure, but where Icarus goes, so does Brotzman.”

Bishop holds his gaze for just a moment too long, but eventually redirects his attention back at the building across the street. Tran starts bitching about jetlag but Priest tunes her out in favor of watching the man in the passenger seat. 

“You are _awful_ serious about your recon, Mr. Bishop,” he observes, just the wrong side of mocking, and Bishop’s frown deepens but he doesn’t take the bait. 

“Don’t you worry, they’re not going to slip us,” Priest continues patronizingly, popping a stick of gum into his mouth. “Brotzman’s not even going to be able to take a shit without us knowing about it.”

◈ ◈ ◈

“Oh my _god_ , Todd, look at the time!”

Todd glances blearily at the watch on his wrist but can’t pinpoint Dirk’s alarm. He raises his eyebrows at said detective. “It’s not even half past five, Dirk.”

“Well, yes. But did you forget?”

“Uh.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dirk snaps. “I can’t believe you forgot!”

“Right. Sorry. What did I forget?”

“Toys ‘R Us! We’re supposed to pick up that ouija board tonight!”

“Dirk,” Todd beings to protest, then catches himself. He’s exhausted, but he promised he’d let Dirk pursue this avenue of investigation. No matter how stupid it was. “Alright, alright. Just give me a minute.”

Dirk huffs and stands, throwing his jacket on with a glance of apprehension at Farah. “Would you like to come? Todd still hasn’t given me a straight answer on which version we should purchase, and perhaps your opinion--”

“That’s okay, you two go on without me,” comes the immediate rejection, and Todd snorts at Dirk’s immediate overdramatic pout. 

“Hurry up then, Todd!”

“I’ll meet you outside in a minute,” Todd grumbles, refocusing on the expense report open his screen and correcting the three typos he’d managed to make during the course of the short conversation. “I need to finish this before we go.”

Dirk heaves a sigh but complies, and Todd has approximately sixty seconds of silence before Dirk’s head pops back into view in the doorway. 

“Todd, come _on_! I just googled the store. They’re going bankrupt! We have to hurry!” he exclaims, and then he’s gone again.

Farah shoots Todd a look, and he can only shrug helplessly in return.

“...He doesn’t actually know what that means, does he?” she asks dryly. 

“Not a chance.”

“Have fun.”

She’s being sarcastic but Todd finds himself looking forward to it all the same. He pictures Dirk bright-eyed with wonder at all the shiny toys. “I’ll tell you all about it later,” he promises, holding back a smile and shrugging on his coat.

Dirk immediately grabs hold of his wrist when he makes it down to the sidewalk, and Todd freely allows himself to be dragged back to Dirk’s new car.

◈ ◈ ◈

Priest and Bishop watch on the tablet screen as Agent Tran stalks their query through Toys ‘R Us. Bishop comments on the excellent quality of the hidden camera on Tran’s glasses, but Priest ignores him. He’s not in the mood for small talk anymore.

The sound is just as clear as the video, but they both soon grow tired of Dirk Gently’s many exclamations of delight as the objects of their operation explore the massive store.

_“Todd! Todd! Look at **that!** They have **bicycles** here--look at all of them!”_ Icarus shouts through the microphone. Priest rubs at his temples in an attempt to soothe away a headache. Bishop’s busy criticizing Tran’s technique now--if she isn’t too close to their targets, she’s too far. Priest’s abundant well of patience is beginning to dry up with each word. 

Tran must be in a similar state of mind because a strained sigh filters through the audio. 

“Any word from Supervisor Adams on when we’re moving forward with the operation?” Bishop asks suddenly, just a little too casually. Priest lifts his eyes and stares at the recruit, immediately annoyed by the question.

"Easy there," he warns smoothly. "Don't get ahead of yourself. We still haven't even identified Project Lamia."

"I know that," Bishop protests with some heat, his eyes locked on the screen. “And I’m not saying we _should_ make a move for them. I’m only asking--is there a timetable?”

Priest raises an eyebrow but quickly drops it again--his face isn’t quite flexible enough for that not to hurt yet. “I’ll let you know,” he hums, watching as the noncommittal response makes Bishop furrow his brow with irritation. Priest smiles; the other man’s easy enough to provoke now that Priest’s gotten to know him a bit.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch, anyway?” Priest inquires politely. He’s not sure that Bishop’s looked away from the screen once since Tran entered the store. 

“I’m just doing my job.”

“Huh,” Priest tuts. “That so? I might go as far as to say that your interest is above and beyond.”

Bishop blinks down at the tablet, his mouth stretching into a grimace. After a long moment he looks up with a deliberate effort and Priest eyes him curiously. “Seriously, Mr. Bishop, what bug crawled up your ass? You might be pretty new to Blackwing but this isn’t your first assignment. Your interest in Project Icarus purely professional?”

The other man’s stare is placid in the way that deep, dark water is. Priest feels a tingle when he looks into those still eyes. It’s a bit like looking in a mirror.

“What else would it be, sir?”

“Don’t know,” Priest admits with amusement. “But I can’t wait to find out.”

Something stirs in Bishop’s blank face.

“Or, maybe I could take a guess.”

“Sir--”

“But first, answer me this: why did you join Blackwing? You’re kind of old to be making this kind of career change.”

Bishop looks down at the tablet and frowns. “I’m sure my file says why.”

“Your _file_ vaguely states that you’ve been negatively impacted by a Blackwing subject in the past. Project Golem, I believe?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“You gotta grudge?” Priest’s watching closely enough that he sees a flicker of something again, but this time it looks more like amusement. 

“No, nothing like that, sir.”

“Huh.” Priest licks his lips. His tongue catches on the scars left behind by Panto Trost’s scissor sword. “Looking forward to the ‘take down’, then?”

Bishop looks again up slowly. 

“Hey now, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. The hunt is only half the fun. The rest comes when you move in for the kill. I can tell you that much from personal experience, my friend.”

The other man’s searching his face now and Priest thinks he can probably guess at his thoughts. _Are you like me?_ There are words for people like Priest. Monster. Sadist. But he prefers ‘thrill seeking’, and he thinks he’s not the only one. 

It’s Priest’s turn smile down at the screen, which shows Icarus balancing on a much-too-small bright green children’s bicycle, to Brotzman’s obvious embarrassment. “You can’t touch the Assets,” Priest says softly, with mock regret. “Supervisor Adams says they’re to come to no harm. But there’s no official protocol about the secondaries.”

From the corner of his eye he sees Bishop shift in the passenger seat, perhaps with discomfort. Perhaps with excitement. By the time Priest raises his head, Bishop’s face is carefully schooled into an expression of disinterest.

But his eyes are alive.

“Now you can’t kill ‘em, Mr. Bishop, but hey… everybody’s gotta blow off steam, right?”

◈ ◈ ◈

“Oh, Todd, I had no idea such a place existed!” Dirk sighs delightedly, clutching the ouija board box to his chest. They’d gone for the classic wood in the end, but not without significant debate. “I’m so glad we went before they bankrupted entirely.”

“Er, yeah,” comes an easy but confused agreement.

Dirk glances over. Todd’s got his hands tucked into his pockets and a small smile on his face, and in the blustery autumn evening he looks… content. It makes Dirk’s chest grow warm with fondness, but the effect is ruined when the other man casually takes out his pill bottle and palms a few of the little red capsules.

Dirk swallows his feelings and looks away as his best friend in the entire universe swallows his medicine.

"Do you think I should get a bicycle?" he blurts out impulsively, and he isn't the least bit offended when Todd barks out a laugh of alarm. He's likely picturing Dirk hitting every curb and lamppost in the city.

"Probably should stick with just the car for now."

"Ah, yes. Good call, Todd."

They walk in companionable silence to said vehicle, and the mellow mood lasts about fifteen minutes before Todd's frowning out the window as the buildings whizz by. "Do you really think Carl Bates is involved? That the lawn tiger thing has anything to do with our Thing?"

Dirk mulls it over and makes a sloppy right turn. "I do believe that Carl is involved in the disappearance of his mother's sculpture, which is terrible--you don’t just take someone’s lawn tiger. But..." He considers his words carefully. "Even I fail to see how that connects to what's happening in your flat. I think Carl's involvement in the ornament theft pretty much rules that out."

"And the bank robbery?"

"Still haven't ruled _that_ one out," Dirk says flippantly, sending his best smile Todd's way. His assistant's eyes narrow, but he's wearing that helpless little grin he sometimes gets when he knows he’s being teased. It’s one of Dirk’s favorites.

“Hungry?”

“After all that pizza? Not even a little bit,” Todd groans. 

“How about a smoothie then?” Dirk suggests, already hunting for a Jamba Juice, and he nearly misses Todd’s quizzical glance. “What? It doesn’t really count as food, you know. It’s beverage-y.” 

“Is this like… a hunch?” Todd asks, and for a minute Dirk searches within himself wonders the same thing. 

“No, I don’t think so. I’m fairly certain I’m just really in the mood for a Razzmatazz.”

◈ ◈ ◈

It’s late, nearly midnight, and Dirk’s back to worrying a path into his carpet. He can’t relax. The day had gone surprisingly well--he’d almost definitively ruled out Ms. Bates’ involvement in their case, had pretty much solved _her_ case in the process, and no one had been shot, arrested, or even properly chased.

Not to mention the fact that Todd had bought him pizza and a smoothie in one day. Without him even _asking_. That was one step short of a marriage proposal in Dirk’s book. 

But the day had soured when he offered to try out the spirit board and have their delayed sleepover as they pulled up to the Ridgely. Todd had managed to weasel his way out of it and Dirk still isn’t entirely sure why he let it happen. He figures it’s mostly that he’s terrified Todd’s going to snap someday soon and banish him from his flat entirely. Dirk’s pretty sure he wouldn’t survive Todd asking for the copy of his key back.

Dirk groans, dramatically drags himself to the far wall, and lets his forehead rest against the window. The pane of glass is ice cold, and while refreshing it does little to clear his thoughts. He watches cars drift back and forth on the street below and tries to think up some excuse to worm his way into Todd’s flat after all.

Nothing clever comes to him and something stupid just won’t cut it this time. 

Outside, the light misting of rain grows into a downpour, and Dirk thinks maybe the universe is upset, too. He thinks about Todd alone one floor up and three flats over and wonders what he’s doing. Sleeping, probably. Certainly not uselessly moping around. 

“Stupid Dirk,” he mutters to himself. He checks his phone and it reads ‘12:17 A.M.’ in bold white letters. He thinks that means it’s probably too late to call Farah and ask for advice, but he realizes that that wouldn’t really be the best idea anyway. They’d had an awkward conversation recently. One Dirk didn’t particularly want to revisit, and bringing up Todd after midnight wasn’t the best way to avoid it. 

When the storm turns violence Dirk retreats from the window, frowning in dismay as the wind rattles the flimsy glass. Stupid Seattle weather. Not that London was that much better. He flops down on the couch and pulls absently at a loose thread on the hem of his boxer shorts, wishing he didn’t feel so desperately lonely. 

He tries to think about something else but only accomplishes summoning thoughts of Blackwing, which is debatably Not Better. He’s grateful that Farah’s brother had given them the heads up, but maybe it wasn’t better to know--they could approach him in broad daylight on a busy street and he’d be just as helpless to stop them from taking him in again. And there was Farah and Todd to think about as well--Eddie had warned them that they’d all be targets, hadn’t he? 

Dirk’s chest starts to feel tight at the thought. What if--

He jumps when his phone buzzes against his stomach, where he’d mindlessly let it drop a few minutes ago. Pulse pounding, he unlocks the screen. 

_[12:29 A.M. whats w this wind?]_

Dirk blinks down at the text message from Todd with blurry eyes, only a little bit embarrassed that such a simple thing could have him tearing up with gratitude.

[12:30 A.M. RIGHT???] he taps back. 

[12:31 A.M. :’( i think my windows about to fall in on me] he sends as well. 

_[12:33 A.M. probably w this cheap ass building]_

Dirk laughs. It sounds strange in the utter stillness of his living room, but he finds he can draw air into his lungs again--the weight isn’t _gone_ , but it’s bearable again. He spends the next twenty minutes complaining about the structural integrity of the Ridgely and he’s touched that Todd puts up with it, sending back jokes or a simple ‘lol’ here or there to let Dirk know he’s still awake. 

It’s almost one o’clock when Dirk reluctantly texts goodnight and retreats into his bedroom. He plugs the charger into his phone and lies flat on his back with a smile, eyes tracing the uneven surface of his ceiling. 

He holds the warm feeling inside of him close, and he manages to fall asleep before the fear in his heart swells up again.

◈ ◈ ◈

“What does ‘Idun’ mean?”

“Huh?” Priest grunts, glancing up from his phone. Agent Tran stares straight ahead through the windshield at the lashing of rain and the distant streetlights. 

“This whole thing. What we’re doing--it’s called ‘Operation Idun’, right?”

“That is correct.”

“So... what does it mean?”

“Do I look like google dot com to you?” he gripes, and to his great annoyance she laughs a little and shakes her head. “Supervisor Adams names the operations these days. You can ask him or you can look it up yourself.”

There’s a brief silence, which Priest relishes. It’s Bishop’s turn to have a night off and Tran’s proving to be quite the blabbermouth without his prickly presence. Priest can mostly tune her rambling out, but actual questions were harder to ignore. 

“Oh. Looks like it’s a reference to Norse mythology.” She angles her phone screen at him but he doesn’t look up.

“Uh-huh.”

“Aren’t you curious?” she asks, with genuine curiosity of her own. Priest sighs and sits up a bit, letting his own phone screen go black. 

“Blackwing’s upper management has always been the whimsical sort--doesn’t seem to matter who’s in charge. I don’t much care what they name the Projects and the operations, Ms. Tran.”

“Oh. Well, it does relate to--”

“Course it relates to what we’re doing,” he snarks. “They wouldn’t give out _random_ names, now would they? But unless that’s somehow going to tell us where and _what_ Project Lamia currently is, or where exactly Project Incubus is--”

“Well, no, probably not. But--”

“Then frankly I don’t see why I should give a shit.”

Tran turns away to stare out the passenger side window. When she sighs her breath fogs up the glass. 

“What happened with Project Incubus anyway, back in Kentucky?” she asks after about two minutes of blissful silence. “I read that you guys nearly got them a few months back. Was it really because of an anonymous phone call?”

She was right to be skeptical. Priest thought it was too good to be true, too, but then he heard the recording of the call, which had been made to a local sheriff’s department in Lexington. The man on the call had complained about maniacs hitting mailboxes from the window of a dirty van marked with a red ‘3’. Priest had personally flown out and investigated--it had indeed been the Rowdy 3 and their ever increasing pack of misfits, complete with the addition of some sort of crippled woman with rainbow hair. They’d managed to escape, though Priest still wasn’t entirely clear on how the van had _straight up flown away_. 

“We live in strange times,” he tells the young recruit. She mutters something like ‘tell me about it’ and goes back to reading up on Norse mythology. 

Priest fingers the scar tissue on his face and fixes his eyes on the Ridgely.


	6. The Spaces In Between

Dirk’s sitting behind the wheel of his Subaru, watching as Todd runs in circles along the sandbank in front of him. Todd’s laughing--Dirk can hear him through the open window. He can smell the ocean on his skin even from this distance. It had been a long drive, even though Dirk doesn’t remember much of it. He’s just glad they decided to get out of the city.

Dirk leans his head back and smiles even though the sun’s in his eyes. The sea sings him a lullaby, and in it he hears the thunder of the gray waves, the cries of distant gulls, and the delighted barking of a dog.

Dirk sits up.

Todd’s still laughing, and Dirk suddenly understands why he’s been running around--Rapunzel’s darting in circles around him, yipping and kicking up sand. 

“Huh,” Dirk murmurs. “That’s strange.” 

It is strange. Super strange. He thinks he’s never seen Todd look so happy, but then his friend looks up and meets his eyes through the cracked windshield, and the smile that dawns on Todd’s face is radiant and heartbreaking. Todd kneels on the beach, petting the corgi with one hand and beckoning Dirk with the other. 

Dirk’s heart patters and he shouts, “okay! I’m coming!”, but the door handle sticks fast when he tries to open it. He frowns down at it and tries again, throwing his weight against the door, but it doesn’t budge. Panic squeezes his throat and he casts desperate eyes back up to Todd.

But Todd’s turned his back on Dirk. He’s looking out over the ocean, which has stilled into a flat line of silver. There’s no sign of the dog and Dirk realizes that the gulls aren’t crying any longer. 

The stillness fills him up and he can’t stand it--he begins to shout.

“Todd! Don’t leave! Wait right there!” he cries out, even though Todd hasn’t moved at all. His friend is a silhouette against the molten horizon. “Todd!”

Dirk jumps when the car’s radio comes to life, blaring, _“It's in the silences, the words you never say--”_

Dirk looks back up and Todd’s statue-still. The sea lies dead and motionless. Dirk tugs uselessly at the door handle. 

_“--I see it in your eyes--”_

The radio grows deafening.

_“It always starts the same way--”_

“Todd!”

Dirk sits up with a choked gasp. He looks wildly around his bedroom, blinking hard against the sunlight that’s streaming through his window. He wants to sit and catch his breath, but the radio is still blaring--no. Not the radio. He doesn’t have a radio.

Dirk glances down at his phone to see that Farah’s calling. He scrambles to unplug the device from its charger and fumbles a thumb across the screen.

“Farah?”

_"Dirk, I can't reach Todd. Are you with him?"_

It's a simple question but there's an edge to her voice that makes Dirk's skin crawl. In his mind’s eye, he sees Todd standing alone against the gleaming sea.

"No, I'm in my own flat--"

_"He's not answering his phone. Or--well--it's more that it's going straight to voicemail. Which means his phone is off. His phone is **never off** , Dirk."_

Her fear is contagious. Mostly because she’s right--Todd always keeps it on, just in case Amanda wanted to reach out, just in case she needed help. Dirk scrambles off his bed, trips, and then awkwardly pulls on a pair of pants with one hand. "Okay! I'm on my way!"

He grabs his keyring off of the kitchen counter and thanks the universe that Todd had given him an extra key after they got back from Montana. He keeps the phone pressed to his ear as he bolts from his apartment, up a flight of stairs, and down the hallway. All in all, he makes it from his bed into Todd's flat in about thirty seconds.

"Todd!" he shouts as soon as he bursts in, ignoring Farah's little protest of pain at the volume.

Dirk's not sure what he expected to find--maybe Todd lying unconscious on the floor, maybe evidence that he'd been spirited away in the night by nefarious government agents--so the sight that greets him is a surprise.

Todd's head pops up from a sea of blankets, his hair rumpled and his eyes still half-closed.

"Dirk?" comes a sleepy grumble. "What the hell?"

Said detective collapses back against the door and gulps in air. Farah's demanding to know what's going on, but he only gives her a quick, "everything's fine, Farah, he was only sleeping, we'll call you back later."

He hangs up despite her immediate demand not to do so. Todd sits up a bit, blinking slowly, and frowns at him.

"What's going on, Dirk?"

"Oh," Dirk exhales harshly with relief, then staggers over to sit uninvited on the edge of Todd's bed. "Farah's apparently been calling you all morning."

"She has?"

"Apparently your line is going straight to voicemail," Dirk informs him, trying to sound stern with disapproval. "We were _very_ worried."

"Shit! It must have died," Todd complains drowsily, his voice still rough with sleep. "I plugged it in, but--" He glances around and then start pawing through the selection of junk on the shelf behind the head of his bed.

"What the hell?" his small friend demands, wide awake now. "Where--" He holds up the end of the phone charger cable. Dirk notices that there's no phone attached.

"Are you sure you plugged it in?"

Todd sends him an irritated squint and then resumes searching. "Yeah, I plug it in every night."

"Maybe it fell?" Dirk asks, and then helpfully drops to the floor to check under the bed. It's a bit cluttered but cleaner than he expected, and there's no sign of a cell phone.

"Great. This is just fantastic."

Dirk sits back down and tries not to let his excitement show. "So! The mystery deepens!"

"Dirk--"

"I knew we should have tried out the spirit board last night," he shares, taking care not to mention anything about the possibility of sleepwalking. 

Todd sighs in defeat and runs a hand through his sleep-messy hair, but he only succeeds in making it look more disheveled. Dirk finds it adorable. He also doesn’t mention that.

“Shit,” Todd murmurs again, but this time with defeat. He slumps back against his pillow and frowns. “I guess it really is gone.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to procure a new one,” Dirk consoles, patting softly at Todd’s blanketed knee. 

“I guess. At least I won’t need to worry too much about my contact list,” his assistant says in a way that can’t be anything less than self-deprecating. “Not like I had a lot of people in it, and half of them wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway.”

Dirk squirms in discomfort in the face of Todd’s self-loathing. Instead of addressing it head-on, he clears his throat, stands, and bounces on the balls of his feet. Mustering all the cheer he can, and asks if Todd wants to go to the mall.

“The mall?”

“Yes, the… a mall?” Dirk tries again, narrowing his eyes as he thinks hard on what he knows about Seattle. “America, it has lots of malls. Or so I’ve heard. Does Seattle not have one?”

Todd frowns at him. “Yeah, sure. It has more than one.”

“Then there you go! We can swing by the one of your choosing today and get you a new phone!”

“I--”

“And we can grab some food at the food court! Oh! And maybe we can stop by and see if there’s a bookstore!”

“A bookstore? Why?”

“To find a book on spirits, of course!” Dirk puts his hands on his hips, but he’s smiling because Todd’s starting to, too. 

“Of course.”

“And perhaps one on sleepwalking. Maybe.”

“Dirk.”

“It couldn’t hurt!” the detective protests smoothly. He motions for Todd to get up, but the other man doesn’t budge. He’s clearly not inclined to leave his warm bed yet. “We need all the information we can get.”

“Okay, well. There’s this thing called the internet and--”

Dirk sighs theatrically. “Have you no sense of adventure in you at all?”

“What? What does--Dirk, it’s a _bookstore_ \--”

They both jump when Dirk’s phone blares out his obnoxious ‘90s ringtone. The song makes Dirk’s stomach turn, and he fumbles with it and mutters, “shit”, when he sees Farah’s name pop up above the very much candid super secret picture he took of her last week. 

He swipes the green circle. “Hello, Farah, we were _just_ about to call you back!”

 _”Uh-huh.”_

Todd groans and finally rolls out of bed, making a beeline for the bathroom. 

_“Dirk, what’s going on?”_

“Nothing bad. Or, well, nothing awful. It appears that Todd’s cell phone has vanished along with his other poor possessions.”

Farah makes a thoughtful, concerned noise into the phone. _“That’s not good. What if he’d had an attack and needed to call--”_

“Yes, yes, Farah. I’m aware of the potential terrible outcomes.” Dirk paces to the kitchen, then feels himself flush a bit when he hears the shower turn on, because he didn’t see Todd grab a spare set of clothes. Dirk doesn’t know if that means the other man’s going to come out in a towel or--

_“Okay. Are you guys--”_

“We’re going to the mall,” Dirk says quickly, sounding strangled, then clears his throat. “We’re going to go get him a new phone. And perhaps some books on the occult. There might also be a cinnabon in the cards.”

There’s an awkward beat in which he can practically feel Farah’s impatience through the phone line. _“Alright, well, that’s good I guess. Anyway, Dirk, listen.”_

Dirk never much likes it when she says that, because it usually means he’s not going to like what she’s going to say, and that’s why she wants him to focus. 

_“I’m going to be out of the city for most of the day, so I won’t be at the office, and I won’t be able to back you guys up if you get into trouble,”_ she warns. 

“Oh?” he asks, in his best yes-I’m-prying-but-I’m-not-actually-asking voice. Farah doesn’t take the hint. 

_“So stay out of trouble, okay? And have Todd text me his new number right away if he has to change it.”_

“Okay, will do, but where are you--” 

He frowns down at his phone when it beeps. 

Farah had hung up on him.

Todd suddenly comes out with a towel wrapped around his hips, his face stiff and pink with embarrassed. He grabs some clothes and retreats back into the bathroom. Dirk stares the whole while and tells himself he didn’t have time to modestly turn away.

◈ ◈ ◈

"Your new recruits are a mixed bag."

"How so?" Ken asks, taking a sip of the truly substandard coffee and biting back a wince. Diner coffee. He should’ve ordered orange juice.

"For one thing, I can't seem to get Ms. Tran to shut up."

"Really? I find that surprising. I hear she was very quiet throughout the recruitment phase."

"Well now," Priest drawls, "guess she's coming out of her shell."

"And the other one?"

"Ah, Mr. Bishop? You know, I do consider him to be something of a protege."

Ken blinks slowly. "You realize he's only a year younger than you?"

"And yet, I have so much to teach him."

"I'm sure you do," Ken agrees amicably. He has a vague notion that the look in Priest's eyes is slightly unstable, but Ken isn't about to argue with his expertise. The man was simply the best people-hunter they had, and if he wanted to share those skills... Well, that was just fine with Ken.

There's a comfortable silence as Priest wolfs down his impressive spread of breakfast fare and Ken picks at the scraps of his omelette, his mind wandering. Priest dabs at his mouth and glances slowly around the diner.

“What time you gotta be back at the airport?”

“Seven, but there are some things I need to get done first.” Ken doesn’t share what those things are and Priest doesn’t ask. There’s a long pause, in which Ken finishes the last bite off his plate.

"You think all this is gonna work out the you want, Mr. Supervisor?"

"I do," Ken asserts eagerly. He doesn’t bother putting on his Authority persona with Priest--they’re long past that. Priest nods and ignores the gawking family that passes them on their way out of the restaurant, and Ken doesn’t exactly blame them--Priest’s scar is rather striking. “As long as everyone sticks to the plan, we’ll all get what we want.”

“Then I guess we better stay on track.”

“Guess so. How’s the recon going?”

“About as expected with Icarus involved. Stupid, mostly. But I’m not worried about it. Brotzman never strays far.”

“Lamia?”

“No sign yet. No news about the sister or her motley crew, either,” Priest scoffs. 

Ken sighs and sits back, pushing his empty plate toward the middle of the table. Their waitress glances over but doesn’t come running--she’s busy chatting with the handsome young men near the kitchen. Ken frowns at her and furrows his brow and observes the immediate effect. The woman dips her head apologetically and scrambles over to clear their dishes.

◈ ◈ ◈

It takes less time than Dirk expects for Todd to pick and buy a phone--if it had been Dirk, he'd need _at least_ three hours to decide on one. There were so many to choose from! But Todd, being the straightforward, reliable man he is, was able to get one and get out within twenty minutes.

They hit the food court, and Dirk is taken aback by the wave of conflicting aromas and the wall of neon signs. He excitedly points out the restaurant fronts he recognizes and curiously studies the menus of the unfamiliar ones. In the end, he decides on Hotdog-On-A-Stick for novelty's sake, though he keeps an eye on the Cinnabon stall for dessert. 

He generously offers to get their food while Todd finds a table and sets up his new device. The surprised, grateful smile his friend gives him is well worth it.

By the time Dirk returns balancing two trays of food, Todd's got his new phone up and running. Dirk glances over as he lays the trays down and sees a webpage open on the screen. Todd offers him a quick thank-you when Dirk slides over the teriyaki chicken he'd asked for, but he doesn't look up until Dirk's sat down and stuffed half of a corndog into his mouth.

"Dirk, look at this." Todd sounds excited, nearly breathless with some realization. Dirk swallows the lump of food and takes the phone, frowning down at the picture until he realizes what it is.

"A lawn giraffe! This is one of those sculptures! Like the ones at Cheryl Bates' house!"

Todd takes his phone back, nodding enthusiastically. "I was thinking about that thing you said--"

"Which thing?"

"About what kind of market this kind of thing would have."

"Ah! Yes! I did wonder about that. Good memory, Todd."

Todd offers him a one-sided smile. "Thanks, Dirk. Anyway, so I don't know why I thought of it just now, but I thought it was worth looking into."

"And?"

"Well, this giraffe and the ones we saw the other day are all by the same artist, some woman in New York named Andrea Hurston."

Dirk takes another bite and nods along.

"So, she was kind of famous a long time ago, but not so much lately. She retired like two decades ago. She died of natural causes last month."

"Ah," Dirk says, but he doesn’t get it yet.

"Up until now her sculptures were worth around a grand each. But after her death an article came out about what a genius she had been, and it caught on and--look."

Todd scrolls down on the screen and displays it again. Dirk squints and then raises his eyebrows.

"Ten thousand dollars!" he gapes. "Just for that giraffe?"

Todd nods, looking satisfied with himself. "Her work is worth ten times what it was. Which means--"

"Which means that branch tiger is worth ten thousand dollars..." Dirk blinks in amazement. 

"Or something around that. Which means that Carl--"

"Has motive! Todd, you are a _genius!_ " Dirk bounces in his seat, wishing he could reach across the table and hug his friend. Todd turns a fetching shade of rose at the compliment, or perhaps it's the admiration on Dirk's face.

"We heard Carl admit he didn't file a police report to whoever he was on the phone with."

Dirk nods. "He must be planning to pawn it! It'll be much easier to find a buyer without the police sniffing around."

"Right. Not too many lawn tigers on the market, it would lead right back to him."

"So, Carl Bates took his mom's sculpture in order to sell it and keep the money for himself. But why not just ask his mother for some money? She obviously has some to spare."

Todd digs his fork into his plate of chicken. He takes a bite, looking thoughtful. "Maybe he did and she said no."

"Why would she say no?" Dirk asks, perplexed. "He's her son!"

"Well, some families are like that. They want their kids to earn their own way."

Dirk thinks of Todd's own parents and realizes that they're getting dangerously close to a difficult topic. He takes another big bite of his corndog. "In any case, I believe this is a learned behavior, in Carl's case," he says with his mouth full.

Todd makes a face at Dirk's manners, but asks, "what do you mean?"

"Like mother like son!"

"No, I got that--I mean, what do you think Cheryl did?"

"Well! I'm not sure. But something tells me she didn't come into her fortune by luck."

"You think she did something illegal?"

Dirk nods, then finishes his first corndog and starts in on his second.

“Still, don’t you think it’s weird?”

“Which part?” Dirk asks, chewing on one side of his mouth.

“If it doesn’t have anything to do with you or the universe’s… Thing. What are the odds that we’d stumble into the middle of something like that?”

"Could just be a coincidence."

"Or a coinky dink?" Todd asks with a full-blown smirk. Dirk grins back.

"I'm afraid it's not nearly sexy enough for that, Todd."

“Can’t argue with the expert.”

Dirk rests his elbow on the sticky table, and then puts his chin in his hand. He gazes adoringly at Todd. "We should move to Alaska," he declares, apropos of absolutely nothing. Todd nearly drops his fork in surprise, then laughs. "I hear it's lovely this time of year."

Todd pops another piece of teriyaki in his mouth. He pretends to think it over. "It would be less crowded than Seattle."

Dirk smiles so hard it hurts his face. "We could get a dog sled team!"

"I do like dogs. Even after the Lydia Spring case."

"Rapunzel," Dirk says solemnly, like it's an agreement. "She did not like us very much by the end of it all."

"At least Lydia came around."

"That's what I like about you, Todd. Ever the optimist."

Todd laughs again at that because it's patently untrue, and Dirk joins in. By the time they finish eating they're grinning like idiots in the middle of a greasy food court, pink-cheeked and pleased.

"Well! I think I left room for some dessert! Split a cinnabon with me, Todd?"

Todd looks like he's about to refuse--he hadn't even finished his teriyaki--but for some reason he smiles and nods and it makes Dirk's stomach feel funny. He pats the table enthusiastically. "I'll be right back!"

The line's longer than it had initially looked, and by the time it's his turn to order Dirk's feeling a bit pissy for the wait. He spends another four minutes waiting for the single cinnamon roll, but he returns to Todd triumphant, bearing one dessert and two forks. Todd's cleared away the plates and trays, but he's got an odd look on his face.

Dirk immediately puts down the roll and drops into the empty chair on Todd's side of the table.

"Todd? What's wrong?" he asks, rubbing a hand on his friend's back. 

Todd looks at him but his eyes don't seem to focus. He puts a hand on his chest and starts to look a little bit gray. Dirk breaks out into a sweat and then reaches over to dig through Todd's jacket pockets without permission. 

He shakily pulls out the bottle, then hands Todd two pills and his own half empty cup of Orange Fanta from lunch. Todd obediently takes both and Dirk's hand goes back to rubbing comforting circles between his shoulder blades.

It only takes a few minutes for Todd to relax back into the little metal chair, gulping in air, but to Dirk it feels like hours. Todd's head bobs in gratitude and Dirk has to blink away the almost-tears in his eyes before he embarrasses his friend in the middle of a crowded mall.

"Thanks, Dirk," Todd wheezes a few moments later. Dirk puts the soda cup back in his hand and Todd drains the rest. Dirk's hand has migrated to rest on Todd's forearm, but neither pay it much mind.

"I'm okay now," his assistant states, but he doesn't look it. Dirk chews the inside of his lip and tries to figure out what to say--he wants to get Todd home but he doesn't want to instigate another fight.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think I've had my fair share of this place! The smell in here is ghastly on a full stomach." It's hardly clever, but he's weak with relief when Todd doesn't get angry.

His friend only looks sadly at the cinnamon roll, forgotten and cold on the table. "You should finish that before we go."

Dirk considers. He realizes he's lost whatever appetite he had left. "Nah," he shrugs casually, "let's just take it to go."

Todd looks skeptical but Dirk wraps the sticky roll in some napkins and then delicately puts it in the pocket of his green jacket. Todd looks downright concerned. "Dirk--"

"It's okay. This one's my least favorite. A little frosting won't hurt it anyway!"

Todd looks miserable but doesn't argue. He’s a bit unsteady but he doesn’t need any help walking, yet by the time Dirk gets him tucked safely into the passenger seat of the Subaru Todd's gone white again. His breathing sounds a bit labored, too, and Dirk feels positively ill with anger at the universe. He doesn't care how or why Todd got pararibulitis, it wasn't _fair_.

Dirk slides into the driver's seat and nearly objects when Todd palms and swallows another two pills, because Dirk doesn't know anything about the medication and certainly nothing about the correct dosage, but surely four pills in less than thirty minutes--

"I'm alright, Dirk," Todd says softly, without even looking over. He closes his eyes and leans back against the headrest. 

"Okay," Dirk answers in a small voice. He starts the car.

Todd's asleep before they even leave the parking garage.

◈ ◈ ◈

Todd allows Dirk to support him as they climb the stairs to the second story of the Ridgely. That alone is enough to have Dirk’s alarm bells ringing, and those bells turn into full-on air raid sirens when Todd tries to collapse into bed with his shoes on. Dirk stops him and earns a grumble for his efforts. 

Shoes and coat off, Todd curls up on top of the blanket. Dirk hovers. He wants to help his friend get comfortable but he’s fairly certain that telling him to take his jeans off could be misconstrued. After a minute of watching him fret, Todd sighs and sits back up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing. Why would something be wrong? Everything is perfectly okay.” Dirk flutters his hands and then turns on his heel and makes for the kitchen. He can feel Todd’s thoughtful frown on his back.

“Dirk, I know you’re… worried. Or something. But I’m fine.”

Dirk opens the fridge, closes it, and then opens it again. He pulls out a can of Welch’s Strawberry soda from a pack that Todd had specifically bought for him and then wanders to the couch, rolling the cold metal between his hands. 

“To be entirely candid, Todd, which I know you’ll hate--”

“What--”

“But, I want you to know,” Dirk interrupts with sudden determination. “I want you to know that we’re here for you.”

“Okay,” comes a reluctant, cautious reply. Dirk drags his eyes up to meet Todd’s, and he can see his friend struggling to sit still and listen. 

“Your pararibulitis--it’s _awful_. I can’t even imagine what you and Amanda go through every single day. But you don’t have to go through it alone.” Dirk finds himself speaking slowly, as if it’ll make Todd more receptive to what he has to say. “But you can talk to me about it, you know. I want you to talk to me about it.”

“Do you?” Todd challenges. Dirk gapes at him and gestures helplessly with his hands; he can’t believe Todd even has to ask that.

“I can’t believe you even have to ask that!” Dirk says out loud.

His assistant grits his teeth and his eyes dart away and back again, like he’s struggling not to say something. In the end, his frustration wins out. “Why would I say anything after how you reacted in Bergsberg?”

“How I--what?” That’s not what Dirk had been expecting. 

“You completely shut down, Dirk. You blamed yourself for my pararibulitis and then announced that you quit being a detective.”

“I… may have been a bit hasty with that particular proclamation. But Todd--”

“Like I said, I get that you’re worried. And, I mean, I appreciate that.” Todd pauses and takes a breath, but continues before Dirk can interrupt. “But that doesn’t mean you can cut me out. I’m a part of your agency, with or without my disease, Dirk.”

“I’m not cutting you out, Todd,” he argues, but there’s a tremor of doubt inside of him. It feels like a half-truth, which is as bad as a lie. “Not… entirely, at least,” he corrects.

The look Todd sends him nearly breaks his heart. Dirk drops the unopened soda can onto the couch and raises his hands up as if to soothe a startled animal. “I just mean that there’s no need for you to put yourself in danger!”

“That’s what we do, Dirk! All of us! I don’t see you fussing over Farah like this!”

"That's because Farah can take care of herself!"

Dirk regrets the outburst as soon as he says it. It’s true though, and he doesn’t dare take it back.

"What, and I can't?" Todd protests hoarsely. He's not yelling but he's getting damn close. Dirk quails and nearly backs down, but he presses on, his chin quivering.

"You insist on hiding the attacks from us, on dealing with them yourself. But you--you could _die_ , Todd! At pretty much literally any moment!"

Todd shakes his head aggressively. "No, you know what? That's bullshit. We've both nearly been killed, what, like, five times since we've met? Which--that's only like six months, by the way!"

“Yes! Exactly! I just want to keep you safe!” Dirk thunders, jumping to his feet and breathing hard. Todd looks surprised, and for good reason; Dirk’s generally not one for raising his voice unless it’s in a shriek of delight--or fear. But he’s willing to go against his nature if it means Todd will _understand_. 

But Todd doesn’t understand. Dirk can see it in his eyes. He’s gearing up for a fight.

“I can’t lose you,” Dirk continues weakly, deflating in the face of Todd’s outrage. Dirk drops his gaze to his boots. “I can’t, Todd.”

A silence yawns between them and Dirk wonders if this is it--if this is the time he’s gone too far, pushed too hard, said too much. But Todd’s eyes look raw and wet when Dirk gathers the courage to look up again. It reminds him very much of the expression Todd had worn when he’d given Dirk that Mexican Funeral t-shirt outside of the hospital.

“Todd--”

“Dirk, stop.” 

Dirk obediently closes his mouth, but he feels his chin do that obnoxious quiver again. The last of Todd’s anger seems to crumble away at the sight. “Dirk, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--” he hesitates, clearly struggling. In the end he settles for dropping his shoulders. “I don’t know what I mean.” 

About twenty thoughts run through Dirk’s head, but he’s pretty sure Todd doesn’t want to hear any of them, so he stands uncomfortably and waits his friend out. It doesn’t take as long as he expects.

“I can’t lose you, either,” Todd admits. Dirk’s chest tightens at the confession, even though it sounds like it had cost Todd dearly to say it out loud. “Which is why I want to be there when everything goes to shit. And it always does.” Todd gives him a bitter smile. “Dirk, having pararibulitis sucks. It’s terrifying and it’s painful but I don’t want to let it rule my life. I don’t want you and Farah to leave me behind.”

Dirk’s moves into Todd’s space, sitting down beside him and laying a quaking hand on his shoulder before he can think better of it, and it nearly takes his breath away when Todd leans into the touch. 

“I’m never going to leave you behind, Todd. I promise.”

Todd nods and then slumps, exhausted. Dirk can see that his friend has fulfilled his emotional quota for the month and decides to give him a break. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

Todd looks ready to argue but he’s clearly having trouble keeping his eyes open. He breathes out through his nose and then collapses backward onto the bed. Dirk awkwardly stands and encourages Todd to get into bed properly, which he accomplishes despite a sleepy protest. 

Dirk watches him for a moment and then turns to Todd’s discarded coat. He fishes the bottle of antipsychotics out and delicately places it on the shelf behind Todd’s bed, then goes and fills a glass with water and places it beside the pills. 

“Okay,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “Goodnight, Todd.”

He turns to leave, feeling ill at ease, but Todd’s hand shoots out from the blankets and grabs him by the wrist. Dirk stares down in wonder. His friend hasn’t bothered to lift his head, choosing instead to mutter into his pillow. “You can stay if you want.”

“Okay. Yes. Okay, good idea,” Dirk stammers. Todd drops his wrist and Dirk feels the loss keenly. “Okay,” he says again, softly this time. Todd curls deeper into his bed as Dirk prepares the couch, and by the time Dirk settles down--still in his yellow button-down and black jeans, because he doesn’t want to make things weird by taking his pants off--Todd’s fast asleep. 

Dirk expects to lie awake and worry, but he slips under not long after his head hits the lumpy spare pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was stuck on what Dirk's ringtone should be, but when I realized it had to be a '90s pop song Backstreet Boys was the obvious choice. Spice Girls was a close second, though.
> 
> Also, I'd like to say that the "slow build" tag is legit for this fic. It'll be a pretty long story, with plenty of Bad Times to come, so thanks for being patient with the pacing ♡


	7. Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck

Dirk wakes up with his face buried in a pillow that smells very much like his best friend. Dirk groans and starts to roll over, disoriented, and has to flail to catch himself before he tumbles off of the couch. 

Right. 

He untangles himself from the little plaid blanket and sits up, unable to stop smiling. He glances over at the bed and is pleased to see Todd resting peacefully. Dirk’s reasonably certain that the other man had slept through the night.

Dirk gets up to use the restroom, trying to be as quiet as humanly possible, only to step back out to find Todd sitting up with a yawn. 

“Good morning,” Todd greets groggily. Dirk’s smile splits his face. 

“Good morning, Todd! I hope I didn’t wake you up. How are you feeling?”

Todd stares at him, as if suddenly recalling the conversation from the night before, and Dirk can see him processing his way through that. It looks like a struggle and Dirk’s starting to get nervous when Todd shrugs, yawns again, and says, “tired, but better than last night.”

 _We’ve had a breakthrough_ , Dirk realizes with awe. Knowing Todd won’t appreciate his giddiness over that fact, he bounces into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I’ll make you--something. Coffee? Eggs?”

Todd rumbles out a laugh somewhere behind him. “Coffee’s good. Not sure I trust you to make anything else.”

“A-ha! Your loss, my friend. I’ve been practicing and I can now safely say that my bread toasting abilities are _quite_ improved.”

That earns another laugh. He half-turns to watch Todd rub his eyes and nod. “Toast it is.”

In the end, Todd drains the coffee but only eats two bites of the buttered toast, despite his joking reassurance that it’s not half bad. Dirk devours his own two slices and finally drinks the can of strawberry soda he’d pulled out of Todd’s fridge the night before. Todd pulls a face but wisely doesn’t comment on Dirk’s sugar intake.

Todd perks up considerably after breakfast but Dirk insists on doing what little cleaning up there is to do. Todd watches him with a bemused, begrudging smile.

“Well! Now that we’re fed, I think I need a change of clothes. And a shower,” Dirk announces, eager to wash yesterday off of his skin.

Todd nods, likely looking forward to his own morning routine. “‘Mmkay, take your time.”

“Oh! When I get back, maybe we can try out the spirit board!”

“Sure,” Todd laughs, then stifles another yawn. “Why not?”

◈ ◈ ◈

Dirk practically skips down to his own flat, feeling energized and embarrassingly happy.

He showers, fusses with his hair, changes into a white button-up and turquoise pants, and then heads back upstairs with the unopened ouija board tucked under his arm. He’s reaching for the door handle when he hears a faint, odd noise from beyond the door. Dirk bursts into the room to find Todd on the floor.

Dropping the ouija board unceremoniously to the ground, Dirk falls to his knees beside his friend, who appears to be choking on absolutely nothing. Breaking out into a cold sweat, Dirk leaps up and lunges for the pill bottle behind the bed but there’s only a glass of water waiting for him.

“No,” Dirk wheezes with realization. He looks around wildly, hoping the bottle had just fallen, and then futility tears through the blankets on the bed. 

The antipsychotics are gone.

Just like the guitar case--just like the shampoo and the plant and the sheets and the phone--

Todd’s making awful noises on the floor and Dirk can’t stand to hear them, but he knows it’s a bad sign when they start to get weaker. Dirk spins in a circle, panting, and then starts wildly patting his pockets for his phone. He gets lightheaded when he comes up empty. 

“No, no,” he begs, clearly picturing his phone on his coffee table downstairs, right where he’d left it not five minutes ago. Dirk thinks he can make a run for it, be back in under a minute, maybe call the ambulance on the dash back up.

But then Todd abruptly goes quiet.

“Todd?” Dirk throws himself back down on the floor, ignoring the pain in his knees. “Todd!”

There’s a shuffling sound behind him, and then a tentative, "Dirk?"

He whirls around to find a woman in exercise shorts and a 'Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck' t-shirt gawping at him in the open doorway. He doesn't understand who she is for a moment, but then he abruptly recognizes her forehead.

"You're--from downstairs--"

"Yeah," she says, tilting sideways to peer around him to where Todd is lying. "I'm looking for Dennis, have you--"

"Please, I can't find my phone," Dirk cries out, "call an ambulance!"

The woman pats her shorts and shakes her head. "Um, no pockets."

Tears well up in Dirk's eyes. He should be screaming for help--surely one of their other neighbors would hear--but there's a crushing weight in his chest and he can't draw in the air. He looks pleadingly at the woman, who stares dumbly back before shouting "um, hold on!" and bolting away. Dirk can hear her thunder down the hallway and then there's a terrifying silence. Shaking, he turns back to Todd and flutters his hands over the other man, uncertain if it was okay to touch him. He settles for resting his hands on Todd's chest.

He chants, "wake up," and gives Todd a gentle shake, but his friend doesn't move. Dirk thinks Todd might not be breathing anymore and the panic returns in full force. Dirk chokes out a plea at the universe and suddenly their neighbor is back.

She's standing behind him with her phone to her ear, breathing hard and shouting their address at the 911 operator on the other end of the line. Dirk blinks up at her and doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's crying--he doesn't know when it started, but he couldn't stop now if he tried. The woman stares back awkwardly and lowers her phone.

"Um, they're sending an EMT, Dirk."

A tremor runs through him and he croaks out, "thank you", and then realizes he has no idea how to address her. "I'm, I'm so sorry, I've forgotten your name."

"Cady," she reminds him, looking a little unhappy.

"I'm sorry, I just..." he trails off, feeling dizzy. He looks back down at Todd. "Is he breathing? Can you tell?"

Cady crouches awkwardly down next to him and holds an alarmingly dirty hand above Todd's face. Dirk resists the urge to slap it away. "'M not a doctor or nothing but I think so."

Dirk wipes his sleeve across his face and it comes away damp. "Thank you. For calling 911 for me, my phone--I couldn't find it."

"No problem," she says, looking proud. She smells like cigarettes and cat piss but Dirk doesn’t mind. 

A siren sounds in the distance and her dirty hand pats him on the shoulder in a show of reassurance.

◈ ◈ ◈

Cady drives him to the hospital. The EMTs had pushed them aside and taken Todd to the waiting ambulance, but Dirk hadn't been invited for the ride. He'd been too slow to ask.

Cady's car is a battered little Toyota that doesn't smell any better than her apartment, but despite that and the fast food bags that litter the space around his feet, Dirk’s counting his blessings. Cady blasts the heat and smiles each time he says 'thank you', which is approximately every thirty seconds.

He only thinks to call Farah when they're stuck at a red light. Cady hands over her phone without hesitation and tears cloud Dirk's vision again for a moment; he regrets his initial harsh judgment of the woman and her sisters and their filthy home.

Farah answers his call cautiously, not recognizing the number, but she reacts immediately when Dirk sobs her name. She's asking question after question and Dirk can hear her get into her car before he even manages to find the words to explain, but in the end all she needs is, "Todd--they're taking him to the hospital."

_“Which hospital?”_

He draws a blank for a moment. “Uh--shit. Oh! Northpine Medical--”

 _"Okay, okay, Dirk. Take a deep breath. Where are you?"_

He hears her car start up in the background. "On my way, we're following the ambulance."

_"We?"_

"Our neighbor, Cady, she--oh, Farah. Todd--"

 _"It's okay, Dirk. I'm on my way. I'll meet you there."_ The phone chirps, informing him that she's hung up again, and he stares blankly down at the screen. 

He only looks back up when the hospital comes into sight.

◈ ◈ ◈

The waiting room is less than charming.

Dirk and Farah have it to themselves for almost ten minutes before other sad-faced strangers begin to trickle in. They’re in pairs, mostly, except for a family of six women and two men who spread out and talk too loudly for the small space. Their presence seems to fill the room and it’s not long before they’re laughing and making morbid jokes.

Dirk stares at them from across the way, unable to comprehend their mirth. Farah shifts angrily in her chair and Dirk wonders if she’s going to say something, but she doesn’t. He tries to let his mind wanders, but his thoughts just spin violently between Todd, the loud-mouthed family, and the dusty plastic orchid that sits on the little table to his left.

The air conditioning clicks on. 

A weathered man snores softly two chairs to Farah’s right.

There’s a roar of laughter from the large family and Dirk feels queasy anger roll around in his gut. _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_ he wants to yell, but doesn’t. Farah breathes out loudly through her nose but the noisy family takes no notice. By the time they stand, stretch, and march out, Dirk’s got his hands clenched hard enough that his nails cut into his palms. The sting helps to ground him.

The air conditioning clicks off and for a moment he’s grateful because he’s pretty chilled without his jacket, but the room soon becomes stale and stuffy. 

Dirk’s getting antsy. His eyes land on the dirty orchid again and the sad state of the synthetic flower upsets him in ways he can’t begin to understand, so he leans his head back against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut.

The air conditioning clicks on and he’s cold again.

Someone has a sneezing fit, and then there are brisk footsteps clacking down the hall. He only opens his eyes when a tired voice calls out, “family of Todd Brotzman?”

“Yes!” Dirk nearly shoots up out of his seat, but Farah keeps him in place with a firm hand as the doctor pulls up an empty chair and sits down across from them.

“I’m not sure if you’ve been updated at all--”

“No, we haven’t,” Farah cuts in, sounding angrier than Dirk’s heard her sound in a while. Somehow it makes him feel a little better.

“Okay,” the woman placates. “I’m Dr. Nasar. You’re Todd’s…?”

“Fiancé,” Farah supplies with lightning speed. “Farah Black. And this is his friend, Dirk.”

Dirk stares at her in disbelief, his mouth working uselessly, but they both ignore him. 

“Todd’s stable and doing well. From information provided by the EMTs and his medical history, he has a genetic disease--”

“Pararibulitis,” Farah provides impatiently.

“Yes.” The doctor pauses, looking distinctly unimpressed at the interruption. “It appears that his pararibulitis caused a tactile hallucination, which resulted in a mild seizure on the way to the hospital.”

Dirk makes a hoarse sound in the back of his throat and then Farah’s hand is back on his arm, squeezing reassuringly. “But you said--you said that he’s stable?” he asks, unable to bear the uncertainty. “He’s alive?”

“Yes, he’s alive, and in recovery now. We’re concerned about possible brain swelling but there’s no indication of any trauma or structural damage.”

“I’m sorry--I don’t understand,” Dirk states bluntly, nearly breathless with fright. “You said he’s stable but--brain swelling?”

“It’s possible there is minor swelling. It seems that he took a bad knock on the head, likely from collapsing when the hallucination began, and frankly we do not know enough about pararibulitis to rule it out as a direct cause of the inflammation. But, as I said, it’s minor. We just won’t know the impact until Todd wakes up.”

Dirk sways in his chair. The doctor frowns in concern but presses on. “For the moment, we’re confident he’ll make a full recovery. He may need time, maybe some speech therapy if he’s unlucky, but he will recover.”

“Okay, thank you,” Farah breathes out, then removes her hand from Dirk’s arm to scrub at her face in relief. Dirk feels ungrounded without her steady grip. He thinks he might just float away.

“We have him on some pretty heavy sedatives to reduce the swelling and prevent another pararibulitis episode. He’ll need to stay for observation, likely for a few days.” Dr. Nasar pauses to hand Farah a slip of paper, then points behind her at a flat-screen television mounted to the wall; six-digit numbers with color codes are listed across its surface. “Todd’s number is listed there. The code will change once he’s been assigned a room, but he’ll be in recovery for at least an hour.”

“Okay,” Farah mumbles, looking numbly down at the paper.

“Once he’s been set up in his room, you can visit for a short period. I would recommend an hour.”

An _hour_? Dirk balks at that but Dr. Nasar stands before he can articulate a protest. “I know all of this sounds very scary but Todd’s in good hands. We’re very optimistic.” 

“Thank you,” Farah says again, subdued. 

The doctor gives them a clipped goodbye and leaves without returning her chair to where it had been. Farah turns to give Dirk a pained smile; his mouth twitches in an attempt to return it, but he doesn't quite manage it because an uncomfortable, creeping feeling is curling in his belly. He tries to wait for it to stop, but when he can't stand it any longer he looks at Farah out of the corner of his eye.

"Why did you tell that doctor you’re Todd's fiancé?" It sounds a lot more like a demand than he'd intended.

"That's how it works--they'll only give information about Todd's status to family," she tells him kindly, like she knows what he's thinking. “Fiancé is close enough.”

Dirk tries not to let it bother him, but he wishes he'd thought of it first. "Oh,” is all he can manage to say.

The air conditioning clicks off and he’s sweating within five minutes. He’s busy trying to relax when Farah abruptly stands, murmurs something that sounds like, “I’ll be right back,” and then she speed-walks out of the waiting room. She comes back ten minutes later and offers no explanation.

Dirk doesn’t ask.

Now that he knows what the television screen is for, he can’t take his eyes off of it. Todd’s number is set again a lilac purple, which, according the key at the bottom of the screen, still means recovery. Dirk examines the key and then spends the next seventy-two minutes waiting for it to turn yellow.

When it does, he doesn’t leap to his feet and dash down the hall. It’s like his limbs have filled up with lead and he finds himself stuck dumb and motionless to the chair. 

“Come on,” Farah prompts softly, already standing. The remaining families in the waiting room stare passively at them. “Let’s go.”

Dirk follows her in a daze. They go down a hallway, up four floors in an elevator, and then down another hallway and around a corner. They stand in front of Todd’s room and Dirk takes a shuddering breath, terrified of what he’s going to find behind the door. Farah steps gingerly inside and when Dirk eventually follows his eyes immediately find the pale figure on the bed. Todd looks tiny against the bulky pillow and sterile white sheets and Dirk marvels that his friend can simultaneously look so peaceful and so, so vulnerable.

It’s a small room with a single bed and two chairs and for a moment Dirk tries to distract himself by reflecting on his own hospital stay not that long ago. Thinking about that doesn’t help. Neither does looking at the machines and the tubes.

Farah slowly settles down in the chair nearest to the door, her eyes fixed on Todd, but Dirk can’t bring himself to do the same just yet. He creeps quietly to the little window and violently tries to rub the tears from his eyes.

◈ ◈ ◈

“Well, isn’t this some shit,” Priest complains.

Ken’s pacing the small office of Blackwing’s Seattle headquarters, having flown in again just twenty minutes ago. Priest thinks he looks awful worried.

“There’s always Farah Black,” he offers in an attempt at consolation. Ken pauses to frown at him. “Icarus likes her, too.”

“No,” is all Priest gets in reply, and then Ken’s pacing again. Priest unwraps a stick of gum and starts chewing. 

“Well, why the hell not? If Brotzman dies--”

“If Brotzman dies Dirk Gently isn’t going to want to have _anything_ to do with the universe’s whims, much less us, Priest.”

Priest muses that over. He’s not sure if it’s true or not but Icarus certainly is the sensitive type. Ken’s shaking his head to himself, and Priest watches as a fine sheen of perspiration appears on the supervisor’s forehead.

“Brotzman can’t die. Gently’s too attached.”

“Well--”

“We _need_ Icarus to perform his function.”

“Do we though?” Priest drawls, smacking obnoxiously on his gum. “There are other Projects, boss.”

“No, not like Icarus,” Ken snaps. “Don’t you get it? Haven’t you been listening? There are only a handful of Projects that function as a debug system, and we don’t know if they can function at all without Gently!”

Priest chews away, unconvinced.

“Icarus is meant to move the pieces to where they need to be,” Ken explains, apparently finding it extremely important that Priest understand. “The universe is broken, Mr. Priest. It used to be able to regulate itself. But then something happened. A Big Bang for weird shit. And now it has tools to act as a safeguard. Bart--Marzanna--she’s one of them. She takes the anomalies out of the equation. And she doesn’t need much guiding for the smaller stuff--I once saw her kill a man just by waving him over. Turns out he’d been keeping a bunch of woman in his basement.”

“So you’ve told me before.” Priest’s getting bored. 

“But for the bigger picture stuff, she needs guidance. Icarus _is_ that guide. For Marzanna and the other debug tools.”

“Or that’s your theory, at least,” Priest reminds him none too kindly. Ken seems to deflate a bit.

“Yes. That’s the working theory.”

“So, you don’t know for sure.”

“That’s the crazy thing--I _do_. I know it with every fiber of my being.”

Priest arches his eyebrows, unimpressed. “What, you psychic too now, Mr. Supervisor?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Ken dismisses, then retreats to sit in the cheap office chair behind his desk. “I don’t have any powers. But I’ve been around The Thing. I know it when I see it.”

“‘Mmkay. Well, what the hell are we supposed to do now? Brotzman’s already in the hospital. Not much we can do about that now.”

Ken closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. “We should have brought him in sooner.”

“You’re the one who wanted to wait.”

“I didn’t think--we had no way of knowing that Todd Brotzman relapsed. He was supposed to have been successfully treated for pararibulitis years ago!”

“Guess it didn’t take.”

“If he dies--”

“Then Icarus won’t do his thing. I got that. But you seem awfully sure we won’t be able to persuade him.”

Ken’s got quite the glare aimed in his direction, but it only makes Priest’s skin wrinkle into a smile. “It never worked before. And Blackwing’s tried. On two separate occasions.”

“I didn’t get to work my magic.”

“Torture isn’t the answer, Mr. Priest. And it wouldn’t get us anywhere with someone like Dirk Gently. He’s not meant to be _forced_ into anything--that’s not how It works.”

Priest sighs and swallows his gum, ready for the conversation to be over. “Then tell me what to do, bossman.”

Ken considers him for a long moment. “Make preparations to have Brotzman transferred to Blackwing. I trust our medical staff is competent enough to keep him alive. I’m less sure about the hacks at Northpine Medical Center.”

“Got it.”

“We have to move quickly,” Ken sighs, leaning back in his chair and staring morosely at the ceiling. “We have to obtain Brotzman before Project Incubus shows up. No doubt Amanda Brotzman will be informed shortly, if she hasn’t been already.”

“Now hold on. Don’t we _want_ Incubus to show?”

“Yes,” Ken confirms. “But only after we’ve completed our operation. If we make a move for Todd Brotzman and fail--”

“We won’t get another chance,” Priest finishes, subdued with the realization that Ken was entirely correct. He stands and stretches. “Well! Better get a move on then.”

“Have Bishop and Tran keep eyes on the hospital. We need to know if Project Incubus shows up.”

“You got it, boss.”

◈ ◈ ◈

Farah sighs with relief when Dirk finally sits down across from her, though he does it so tentatively she’s tempted to check the seat for pigeon spikes.

He looks wrecked. 

She frowns and chews her lip and can’t think of what consolation she can offer. But it doesn’t seem to matter--now that Dirk’s settled down next to Todd he doesn’t seem inclined to pay anything else any mind at all. Farah studies the detective in the rain-gray light and tries not to let her thoughts wander to worst-case scenarios. 

Todd would be just fine. 

They would all be just fine.

A nurse briskly enters the room about fifteen minutes later and glances between them uncomfortably. When she speaks, she only addresses Farah.

“Ms. Black, now that Mr. Brotzman has been assigned a room we really think it’s best that we notify his parents. They _are_ still listed as his next of kin.”

Dirk blinks and looks back and forth between them, clearly confused, and Farah speaks up before he can start asking stupid questions. 

“I understand you have your policies,” she says demurely, allowing genuine anxiety to show through. “But you don’t quite understand the circumstances.”

“Yes, you alluded to that earlier, but--”

“Todd has a... complicated relationship with his parents. They haven’t talked in a long time. A really long time. I’m scared that if he wakes up and sees them here… It would be a shock. He could have another attack.”

“Ms. Black--”

“They’re triggered by stress, you know? The attacks. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t inform them but--what if you waited, just a little bit longer? Just until Todd wakes up and we can explain?”

There’s a lengthy pause. Farah can see Dirk getting riled up from the corner of her eye but she doesn’t dare grant him any attention, not when the nurse is scrutinizing her. 

Farah holds her breath. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” the woman says eventually, sounding distinctly unhappy about it. She casts an uncertain look at Todd and then turns away, leaving the door cracked half-open behind her. 

Farah’s impressed that Dirk manages to wait five seconds before leaping to his feet and crowding close to whisper-hiss at her.

“Farah, what the _hell?_ ” 

“Dirk, I know how it sounds, but it’s true.”

“It’s _hardly_ your place to--they’re his _parents_ \--”

“I know. I hear you. But we can’t risk him having another attack. And… there’s more than Todd’s reaction to consider.”

He frowns and waits her out, looking stung.

“We still have Blackwing to worry about,” she reminds him as gently as she can. His eyes darken with fear all the same. “Putting them in danger is the last thing Todd would want.”

Dirk collapses back into his chair and buries his face in his hands. “I don’t like this,” he tells her, his voice muffled. “I don’t like lying like this.”

“You’re not,” she tells him quietly. He raises his head back up to stare at her, incredulous. “I am. You don’t have to say anything.”

Dirk hides his face in his hands again, but Farah’s pretty sure it’s more from exhaustion than anger. She slowly lowers herself into the other chair even though she’s tired of sitting, and she watches Dirk for a long moment before she realizes that he’s shaking. 

Farah reaches out to lay a hand on Todd’s arm and pretends she doesn’t notice.


	8. The Cat Is Out Of The Bag

Farah finds herself walking a fine line between control and a well-earned breakdown. 

She has a lot of things to worry about and next to nothing that she can do about much of anything. Blackwing, Todd, the agency, Eddie… All she can do is sit and wait, and even that presents a problem--Dirk still hasn’t forgiven her for the fiancé trick because it means she gets to stay with Todd a little longer. Farah’s technically free to stay after general visitation hours end, but the nurses suggest that she let Todd rest for the night so, as his betrothed, she decides on an extra thirty minutes is appropriate.

When her time is up she finds Dirk slinking around the waiting room like a wounded animal. 

He regards her with something like betrayal and it hurts, it hurts badly, but she’s not exactly thrilled with him, either. She wants to say, _’Dirk, I’m not the enemy’_ , but instead she swallows her pride and goes for a classic tactic--avoidance. 

“Amanda still hasn’t gotten back to me,” she announces to the room, which is empty except for the pacing detective. Dirk shoots her a concerned glance but doesn’t seem to know what to say. That, or he’s regressed about twenty-five years and is giving her the silent treatment.

Could go either way. 

“Her phone keeps going straight to voicemail,” Farah continues as if she hadn’t generously paused to let him reply. “I left two messages telling her to call me immediately, but I’m starting to wonder if I should be more specific.”

“Specific like how?” Dirk asks with reluctant curiosity. 

“Specific, like about Todd. About what’s going on.”

Dirk’s brow furrows. “Why in the world _wouldn’t_ you tell her?”

“Because, Dirk. Can you imagine getting that voicemail?” she asks, but his face goes a shade whiter when he obediently runs it through his mind and she regrets having said it. He lowers his gaze and drops into a chair--the same one he’d been in before, back when they’d first brought Todd in. 

Farah thinks he keeps sitting there because likes the fake plant.

“I’d rather tell her face-to-face, but if that’s not possible it should at least be a conversation,” she concludes.

Dirk nods sullenly and Farah’s starting to lose her iron grip on her temper. 

_’I care about him, too,’_ she suddenly wants to yell. _’You’re not the only one--You’re being selfish--I don’t want to go through this either--’_

But she keeps her mouth shut. Frustrated as she is, she gets it. And more than anything, she knows Dirk’s too stubborn to listen.

“It’s getting late, do you want a ride?” It’s an olive branch, and a damned good one--Dirk had been driven in by some stranger from the Ridgely and his only other option now is the bus, which would just be ridiculous--

“No. That’s alright, Farah. Thank you.”

“Are you serious?” she snaps, her ire floating to the surface in vicious waves. “Dirk--”

“I just want to stay here and think for a bit,” he interrupts weakly. 

Farah doesn’t have much of a reply to that.

Dirk bows his head and seems to retreat inside of himself, and Farah can only stare helplessly. She’s seen Dirk despondent before, but while his behavior in Bergsberg had been an unpleasant surprise it was nowhere near this out of control. 

She shouldn’t leave him. She doesn’t want to. But he’s a grown man and she can’t exactly force him into her car. Well--actually, she could, but it wouldn’t be worth the trouble or the potential 911 calls from concerned onlookers. 

So Farah mutters an awkward goodnight and backs out of the waiting room. She walks down the hallway as slowly as she can, hoping that maybe he’ll sprint around the corner and graciously accept her offer, but he doesn’t. 

Farah walks to her car, jacket collar turned up against the night wind, and tries not to let the silence eat away at her.

◈ ◈ ◈

Priest approaches the car and gestures at the windshield. Bishop slips out of the driver’s side and circles around the back of the SVU to re-enter on the passenger side. Priest climbs in and turns to appraise his agents, only to find Tran white-faced and beady-eyed in the backseat.

“Everything alright?” he asks slowly. He expects a snappy retort from one of them, but neither speak up and that silence speaks volumes.

“Mmkay,” Priest intones suspiciously, looking back and forth between them. Tran keeps her gazed fixed on some dark distant point out the window. Bishop stares back at him, unblinking. “Alright then. Ms. Tran, it’s your turn for a luxurious night off, I believe?”

She only gives a stiff nod.

“Alright, go on then.” Priest watches closely as she bolts from the car and starts a brisk pace down the street, glancing back twice before she turns the corner. Priest waits almost three full minutes for Bishop to explain himself, but the other man only turns his head to stare blankly at the windshield, where flat drops of rain run down in rivlets.

“You gonna tell me what happened?”

“Nothing happened, sir.”

“Uh-huh. Something tells me Ms. Tran might have something to say to the contrary.”

Bishop’s face remains stubbornly placid. “I can’t claim to know what goes through Erica’s mind, sir.”

Priest blinks slowly, incredulous. There’s no particular emotion in Bishop’s voice but his use of Tran’s first name is nothing less than hostile. Priest’s about to call him out on his bullshit when Icarus comes bumbling out of the hospital, narrowly avoiding colliding with an old woman in a wheelchair. Priest’s priorities abruptly shift.

He starts the car, earning a sharp glance from Bishop.

“Sir? Shouldn’t we stay on Brotzman?”

“Brotzman isn’t going anywhere, Mr. Bishop. We have an agent on the inside, posing as an orderly--”

“We do?”

Priest gives him a dead-eyed glare at the interruption. “Yes. We do. As of an hour ago.”

Bishop dips his head submissively and Priest turns his attention back to Dirk Gently, who is slouching toward the bus stop and radiating distress. “We’ll be the first to know if Brotzman wakes up.”

Bishop doesn’t look happy but he doesn’t protest, and that’s good enough for Priest.

◈ ◈ ◈

Farah goes home to an empty apartment. She stands in the center of her living room and tries to stifle the string of profanities that fight to burst out of her. Instead she takes a deep breath, lets the anger go, and accepts a wave of weariness in its place.

It takes her a few minutes but she’s eventually able to change into her most comfortable pair of sweats and a t-shirt with ‘CIA’ branded in yellow across the chest--a gift from Eddie, back when he’d expected her to follow in his footsteps. She sometimes resents the shirt, but it’s well-worn and soft and loose, and she’s too tired to bother thinking about it too much. 

Farah moves through her apartment, feeling numb and uneasy. She decides to clean her kitchen but gives up before she even finishes pulling out the spray bottles and her almost-new pair of yellow rubber gloves.

She abandons cleaning as a lost cause and decides to reach out to a friend instead.

The line rings seven times and she’s about to hang up when there’s a click and a cheerful voice chirps into her ear. 

_"Th **ank** you for calling Little Teventino’s Pizza Shack! Home of the Montana famous cheeseburger pizza. What'll you be having today?"_

"I--"

_"Nah, I'm just joshin' you! You've reached the Bergsberg Sheriff department. Tina speaking--what's up?"_

"Tina," Farah moans, scandalized. "Did you just reverse prank call--you can't--"

_"Farah! Oh my god, hi! What's **up** , man? It's so good to hear from you!"_

“You too,” Farah replies, dazed. 

Tina immediately launches into a series of updates, most of which include local shenanigans, the clean up of the whole Suzie Borton madness, and the very super subtle spying on Blackwing’s experiments on the Cardenas house. Farah lets her talk. It’s soothing and somehow very familiar--maybe it reminds her of Dirk, or maybe she’d grown too accustomed to Tina during their brief time as ‘partners in crime… stopping’, as the other woman had frequently joked.

It takes Tina almost forty-five minutes to run out of steam and stories, and by that time Farah’s feeling almost back to normal. She’s made a cup of coffee and settled into the chair by the window--her favorite spot in the apartment. It was great for keeping an eye on the comings and goings on the street below, and it didn’t hurt that the view included a particularly nice oak tree. 

_“So,”_ Tina huffs, comically out of breath from the monologue. _“That’s what we’ve been up to.”_

“Sounds like you two have kept busy.”

 _“As well as we can, in a dump like this,”_ the other woman grumbles good-naturedly. _“What about you, man? What have you and the Scooby gang been up to?”_

Farah barks out a laughs at that, but it dies in her throat when she realizes that she doesn’t really want to talk about what’s been going on in Seattle. 

But she steels herself and begins explaining. She starts where they left off in their last conversation, over a month ago now, right after the agency officially opened. By the time she gets to Eddie and Blackwing she’s getting tense again, and she’s strung tight as a bowspring once she’s finished telling Tina about Todd.

 _“Oh shit,”_ Tina whispers loudly, horrified. _“Oh shit! That **sucks**. You sure he’s going to be okay?”_

“The doctors are confident,” Farah tells her, setting her mug of tepid coffee on the window sill. 

_“Poor Todd. Poor Dirk--poor **you**! Damn, Farah, that sucks so hard. Do you want me to drive over?”_

Farah chokes out a coughs, caught off guard by the offer. “What? No, there’s no need for that, Tina.”

_“You sure, man? Hobbs can handle things here.”_

“I appreciate the offer,” Farah tells her honestly, touched by Tina’s concern. “I really, really do. But there’s nothing to do here besides sit around the hospital right now.”

_“Yeah, but that’s what friends do. They show up.”_

Farah swallows the lump in her throat. “Thank you, Tina. Really. It means a lot. But with everything going on, with Blackwing… I think it’s probably best you stay in Bergsberg for now. We don’t want to draw their attention.”

 _“Alright,”_ Tina agrees with obvious disappointment. _“But hey, for real, let me know if you need me. I can be there in no time at all! You know how fast I drive.”_

Farah gives a weak but sincere laugh at that, trying not to think about the traffic violations that would ensue. “Thanks, Tina. I will.”

 _“You’d better,”_ she teases with a grumble. There’s a pause. _“How are you holding up? I’m sure Dirk’s being **unbearable**.”_

“You have no idea. But, honestly? I can’t really blame him. And I’m… I’m good. Todd’s stubborn, and the doctors seem like they know what they’re doing. It’s just a waiting game now.”

Tina grunts in agreement. Farah knows she should hang up and get to work--she has research to do. In particular, she needs to know how close Blackwing is, but she’s painfully reluctant to hang up. 

She downs the rest of her now-cold coffee and moves to the couch, where she throws herself down with a groan. “In the meantime, I really think you should tell me more about Mr. Yancey’s rooster operation. For consulting purposes.”

She’s stalling and they both know it. Hobbs has the potential cock-fighting ring under surveillance already and Farah knows next to nothing about the subject, but Tina happily obliges.

They talk about chickens, and then barnyard meth labs, and then about the latest superhero movie Tina had seen, and it’s nearly midnight by the time they reluctantly disconnect. 

Farah lets her phone drop onto the carpet and squeezes her eyes shut. She falls asleep on the couch without worrying about the next day by virtue of sheer willpower.

She dreams of dark water.

◈ ◈ ◈

The morning dawns cold and blustery. Farah finds she has a pain in her neck from sleeping on the sofa, and she manages to drag herself to the bedroom to collapse for another two hours of sleep in a proper bed. When she gets up again she grabs a granola bar and an apple on the way out of the apartment, figuring Dirk might need a snack on the way to visit Todd, but the detective doesn’t answer when she calls.

Farah wears a frown the entire way to the hospital. She enters Todd’s room knowing exactly she’ll find: Dirk sitting bedside, red-eyed and pale. He looks up and gives her an apologetic smile, which she graciously accepts and returns. 

Farah sits down and tries to do paperwork on her phone. Dirk goes back to staring at Todd until a nurse stops by about an hour later to give them good news--she tells them that they plan to reduce the sedatives in the evening, and which means Todd might wake up as early as the next morning.

The effect on Dirk is instantaneous--the term ‘perk up’ would be an understatement. Farah watches as his back straightens and his shoulders relax, and it may be her imagination but a light seems to reignite from behind his eyes. The lines on his face smooth out and suddenly he’s back to his boyish cheer.

It would be cute if she wasn’t so annoyed with him. 

But her amusement fades as Dirk stands, stoops by Todd’s bed, and whispers something in his sleeping friend’s ear. Farah thinks she makes out the words “solve it” and “promise” but she can’t be sure. Farah’s mouth pops open in protest as Dirk straightens, adjusts his red jacket, and then gives her a friendly but determined nod goodbye. 

“Dirk! Wait,” Farah protests, but he’s already out the door and down the hall. She rubs harshly her face and sinks down into the chair closest to the bed.

She tries her best not to resent Dirk for leaving her to deal with the doctors alone.

◈ ◈ ◈

The universe is calling out to him.

He can feel it like the tug of a breeze through his hair, driving him toward something elusive, something important. 

It takes four hours of walking, running, and taking various buses around Seattle before he abruptly realizes, with absolute certainty, that his hunch has nothing at all to do with Todd. He finds a place to sit and fights down a violent wave of nausea. 

“You can’t--you can’t make me move on,” Dirk groans, burying his face in his hands. “I’m not doing this.”

He takes three deep breaths and stands up, keeping his back straight and his chin up. “I’m not doing _this_ ,” he says again, to no one. He repeats it a third time, louder, and ignores the stare he gets from a group of passing pre-teens.

“Give him back to me,” he mutters at the sky, “or find another holistic detective.”

The tug doesn’t disappear but maybe he could sort of pretend that it does relent, so Dirk tells himself that the hunch had been a suggestion and not a demand. He takes the next bus to the Ridgely, suddenly determined to at least try to uncover what the _hell_ was going on with Todd’s flat. 

He wouldn’t let his friend return to a home in which important, life-saving things intermittently disappeared.

◈ ◈ ◈

Dirk makes to the complex in record time, carefully holding on to the thin fabric of his new fuck-you-universe-I-do-what-I-want state of mind. He darts up the staircase and pulls Todd’s key to the forefront of his keyring, but pauses when a flash of orange catches his eye.

He frowns, backtracks a few steps, and watches as a tomcat disappears up the stairs to the third floor. 

Dirk's mouth pops open. _"Dennis!?"_

He thunders up the staircase after the elusive feline and gets to the next landing just in time to watch the cat slip into a doorway at the end of the hall. Dirk follows cautiously, but when he pushes the door open all the way he finds what appears to be an empty caretaker's space.

It takes him a long moment to recognize the room as the one Farah was held captive in by the Men of the Machine. 

The space is transformed, possibly cleaned up by new management, and the biggest change is the windows--the boards have been removed, allowing a stream of silvery light to illuminate the surprisingly cheerful space.

He notes that the string of light bulbs and the old bed are gone as well, but a stack of familiar-looking sheets lay piled in the corner. Dirk suddenly looks around in amazement--a potted plant sits on the window sill, a guitar case lies open and empty beside the makeshift bed, and Dirk's willing to bet any amount of money that the missing shampoo bottle is in the little bathroom on the left.

Dirk watches, stunned, as the orange tabby daintily steps into the guitar case and curls up tight.

"Why Dennis," he breathes out, "however did you do all of this?"

He gets down on his knees and studies the cat, who politely stares back. "Are you... are you perhaps a teenage girl, or other human person, trapped inside the body of a cat?"

Dennis doesn't so much as twitch.

Dirk sits back on his heels, bewildered.

“Are you perhaps a cultist, looking to get revenge by… by… stealing seemingly random things? How on earth did you get into his apartment? How did you get this stuff _up here?_ ”

The cat says nothing.

Dirk prepares to engage in a staring contest but he’s interrupted before the battle can truly begin.

“Hello, Dirk!” a familiar voice calls out softly, and he whirls around in surprise.

“ _Mona?_ ”

“Hi, Dirk!” she repeats, standing up on the balls of her feet like a little kid. She’s still wearing the same floaty white dress and she looks ridiculously happy to see him. He moves in quickly to envelop her in a tight hug.

“What are you doing here?” he asks when they draw back. She smiles up at him.

“What do you mean? I have been here for…” she trails off, her words like flotsam on a slow-moving wave. “Six weeks.”

"Wait--you've basically been here the _whole time_ since Bergsberg?"

"Yes. Except for when I wasn't. Sometimes I was a bumble bee outside. Or a bicycle. Or--"

"We thought you were still at the office!"

"You did?" she laughs, like that's the silliest thing she's heard all day.

"Yes! There's this chair in the corner, by the windows, and--"

"I have not been a chair in..." Dirk waits patiently while she thinks it over. "At least... eleven months."

"Ah. Well, that clears that up, at least. But Mona, what on earth are you doing here?"

"I like it here.” She gives him a smile. Dirk returns it with growing unease.

"Did you take all of these things?" he asks reluctantly, glancing pointedly at the bundle of sheets. He's hoping she's going to say no, that she just found Todd's things here already, that perhaps Dennis the cat was the culprit after all. A cat-burglar, as they say.

"Yes," she replies, still smiling. Dirk's mouth slowly draws downward.

"Mona, why would you do that?"

She points enthusiastically at the feline in the stolen guitar case. "Dennis needed an apartment! No one was using this one!"

"Ah," Dirk says slowly. "Did Dennis... tell you that?"

That earns him another musical laugh. "No, silly! He is a cat, he cannot talk, Dirk."

"Right. Of course. But then why--?"

"Because Dennis is my friend," Mona shares, but she says it like it should be obvious. "And I wanted him to have his own little home before winter!"

"That's... very thoughtful of you. I guess. But why did you take _Todd's_ things?" Dirk's really struggling now. He thinks of Todd lying in that hospital bed and he can't quite keep the edge out of his voice.

Her smile starts to falter. 

"I just mean--Mona, why didn't you _ask?_ I would have been happy to have given you things.”

"I did not know I had to ask." Not for the first time, Dirk wonders who Mona had been before Blackwing--had she been raised there her entire life? Or did living so long as inanimate objects impact her understanding of social customs?

She’s watching him more closely now, obviously picking up on his distress. “I have lived with Todd before. He is my friend.”

“You--you have?” Dirk asks after a solid five seconds of gawking.

“Yes. When you left me behind. Before Martin took me.”

“What?” Dirk asks. He’s hopelessly confused. “Mona--Okay. Nevermind. We can talk about that later.”

“I do not think Todd would mind sharing his belongings with me or Dennis,” she insists, sounding a bit defensive. “After all, he shared his entire home with me before.”

“Mona, did Todd _know_ you were there?”

“Once he picked me up and squeezed me!”

“Er, alright. But did he know you were--well, you?”

“I do not know,” she retorts after a long moment, her huge dark eyes growing dewy. 

Dirk decides to let it go. For now. “Okay, it’s okay, Mona. I’m sure he loved having you for a roommate, unwitting or otherwise.”

Her smile is back, ethereal and sweet as moonlight. 

“But--Mona, I can understand the blankets, and the plant. It certainly livens up the place--”

“Thank you, Dirk.”

“The guitar case I’m not so sure about. But Dennis does seem incredibly cozy in it,” he concedes, and for a moment they both look over to where the ginger cat is curled up tight. “But… why in the world would you take Todd’s medication?”

There’s a long beat. Mona tilts her head in a way that Dirk would normally find endearing. She looks up at the ceiling as if struggling to remember.

"I did not do that."

"Mona--are you sure? _Really sure?_ Because..." he gestures around at the collection of Todd memorabilia. Mona spins in a slow circle to observe the room.

She turns back to him with a whimsical frown. "No?"

"No, as in, you're sure you didn't take them?" he asks, his voice strained with the effort of holding back an outright accusation. "Or no, as in, you're not sure?"

"Um..."

"Mona, please. This is important. Todd is in the hospital." He bites off the, _'because of what you did'_ at the last moment.

She cocks her head like she still doesn't understand. Dirk chews down his anger and breaks into a sweat with the effort.

"Dirk," she begins slowly, in that fanciful lilt of hers. "Are you angry at me?"

"Yes--No--I don't know," he breathes out, scrubbing hard at his face with his hands. "Maybe. I'm just--Mona, I need to know if you took those pills. I’m going to need them back."

"I do not like this conversation," she informs him after a moment of quietly studying his eyes, then abruptly turns her back on him. She doesn't do anything else--she doesn't walk away or say anything or clench her hands into fists.

Dirk doesn't appreciate the dismissal. 

"Mona," he admonishes, but when he reaches out and lays a hand on her shoulder she crumples in on herself in an instant. A little paper airplane sails away from him, then loops overhead and flies out the door.

"Mona!" he cries out, racing to the hallway, but she's long gone. Or invisible to the naked eye, at the very least. "Shit."

Dirk stands helplessly in the doorway, vacillating between anger and regret for being harsh with her. He turns and stares at the room, then slowly begins gathering Todd's sheets in his arms.

He freezes when he inadvertently makes eye contact with Dennis.

The cat is watching him. Not in any particular way, because he's a cat, but Dirk's regret immediately wins out over his frustration. No matter what Mona had done, she hadn't done it maliciously--he knows she doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body. 

"Shit," he mutters again. He lets the bundle of sheets fall back to the floor, then takes a moment to arrange them a bit more tastefully.

He looks at the cat for approval, but Dennis doesn't blink. 

Dirk searches for the antipsychotics but comes up empty. As a consolation, he finds and pockets Todd's cell phone but leaves the rest of the pilfered possessions untouched.

◈ ◈ ◈

Farah checks her phone and then she puts it down. She reluctantly raises her eyes to watch Todd for a few minutes, but it’s hard for her to see him so pale and so still. He looks dead. The thought makes her woozy so she checks her phone again. The wind changes outside, spraying globs of water against the window and drawing her attention. She watches the rain for approximately six-point-five seconds before checking her phone again.

No new messages.

“Goddammit, Dirk,” she mutters. She hears light footsteps almost as soon as the words leave her mouth and for a moment she’s afraid she spoke too soon--maybe the wayward detective had gotten his head on straight and come back. But the man that steps hesitantly into the room is distinctly Not-Dirk. 

Farah rises out of her chair. She’s not sure if she should be alarmed or not, given the nature of their relationship with shadowy government agencies, but the man doesn’t look particularly threatening. His big eyes blink owlishly at her from behind his glasses, and she can see the question forming in his mind--the same one’s already in her own.

“Do you have the wrong room?” she asks gently. The stranger considers that, glances at the bed and stiffens, but doesn’t step any closer. 

“No, I imagine not.” His voice is soft, nearly monotone, and overall she’s given the impression of an accountant. Farah follows his blank gaze to Todd and realization hits.

“Are you Todd’s father?” She keeps her own voice low like she’s afraid to spook him, but his face only hardens when he nods, never looking away from the prone body under the sterile white sheets.

Farah takes the opportunity to study him. 

The thick-rimmed glasses make it difficult to discern his age, but she thinks he looks too young to have a kid that’s in his thirties. But, then again, it was possible he'd had Todd very young--it was hard to imagine with his current clean-cut looks but maybe Mr. Brotzman been wild in his teenages years. Maybe he’d even been in a band.

"It's so nice to finally meet you," she says awkwardly.

"You as well, Ms...?"

"Farah, I'm Farah Black." She holds out her hand politely, and after a moment of hesitation he takes it and gives it one firm shake. 

"You're the one he went on the run from the FBI with?"

"Er. Yes."

"I see." He stares at her and she has a moment to think, _Amanda got his eyes--Todd must take after his mother_ , before realizing that Mrs. Brotzman was nowhere to be seen. 

"Is... is your wife here as well?"

Mr. Brotzman's stare doesn't let up, but if possible it does grow incrementally colder. "We had to take separate flights, she couldn't get out of work."

"Oh." Farah frowns. 

Noticing her expression, Todd's father sighs out through his nose. "Ms. Black, we couldn't both just drop everything to come here. Not when we weren’t even sure if it was real or not this time."

"Of course," she stammers, embarrassed. There’s a pause in which the man hesitates to look over his shoulder, then meets her eyes again with nothing less than shame. 

“Has he asked you for money?”

“I--no?” she answers with bewilderment. “Why would he ask me for--” 

She reads it on his face then, and she feels a rush of embarrassment for Todd. “No, your son has never--he wouldn’t--What I mean to say, Mr. Brotzman, is that Todd isn’t like that. At least not… anymore.”

“He’s told you? About what he did?” Mr. Brotzman asks quietly, and Farah suddenly very much wishes that they weren’t having this conversation. She quietly curses the nurse for not giving her more time to prepare for meeting Todd’s parents. She only prays that the hospital staff neglected to mention his ‘fiancé’. 

“Yes, he told us about it--about lying about pararibulitius. He was a different person then.”

Mr. Brotzman’s frown doesn’t let up. If anything, it seems to stretch further across his face as he scrutinizes her. “How long have you known my son?”

“A couple of months.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t put much stock in your opinion of him, then, Ms. Black.”

“It may not seem like a long time, but we have been through a _lot_ in that time, Mr. Brotzman.”

“Yes, while on the run from the U.S. government?” he asks dryly, and she feels blood rush up to warm her face. He sits down in the chair furthest from the bed. “They came looking for both of our children. They interrogated their old friends, teachers, the people at our church… It was very embarrassing for our family.”

“There were extenuating circumstances. It wasn’t Todd’s fault--or Amanda’s--it wasn’t… anyone’s fault, really.”

“Todd got involved with some--some Dirk Gently person, and he dragged our daughter into it. Our sick daughter.”

“Mr. Brotzman--”

“And now we hardly hear from her at all. Did you know that she used to call every other night? And now--now she’s off, God knows where, with God knows who, doing God knows what,” he tells her, and he’s not yelling but his quiet anger is somehow worse. “And our son, who coerced us into giving him our life savings for a disease he didn’t _have_ \--he’s lying here in the hospital, because of that same disease?”

Mr. Brotzman takes a breath and rubs a hand across his mouth. “Please don’t defend our son, Ms. Black. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She wants to make a case for Todd, to tell his father he’s different now, that he helps people. But somehow she doesn’t think Mr. Brotzman would appreciate hearing about his son’s involvement with body swapping cultists and a time machine, even if it did end with the rescue of a young heiress. Farah bites her lip. As much as she cares about Todd, as proud as she is of the changes he’s made in his life, it isn’t her place to argue with his father. But she isn’t going to apologize, either. 

“Can I get you something? A coffee or--”

“No. No thank you,” he sighs, and the anger deflates right out of him. She watches as his eyes drift to the hospital bed and she suddenly decides to give the man some space.

“Okay, well, I’m just going to--”

Mr. Brotzman nods dismissively, so she turns on her heel and retreats out of the room. She tries not to be upset that the hospital staff couldn’t hold off on notifying Todd’s parents, because she appreciates rules, as a general rule, but it’s hard to beat back her frustration. She thinks about Todd waking up to his unfriendly father. 

It’s a mortifying thought, and one she’d rather not have, so she paces down the hallway and pulls out her phone. 

Farah frowns when she finds no messages waiting for her. Dirk hasn’t replied to her last three texts, and Amanda _still_ hasn’t called back. She takes a breath and calls her again, but it predictably goes straight to voicemail. She has to ask herself if Amanda and her unruly gang are even on Earth anymore--with all that they’d been through, she wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they’d found themselves in another dimension. Farah just wishes that dimension had cell phone reception. 

She doesn’t let herself wonder if Amanda arriving would be adding fuel to the fire.

She feels a pulse of pain, likely a stress headache building up, and after a moment of hesitation she takes the elevator down to the lobby and calls Tina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you _so much_ for all of the kind comments! You guys keep me going.


	9. Prophylaxis

Priest’s morning isn’t off to a terrific start. He was woken early by a bored-sounding administrator calling to inform him that Tran had officially put in a transfer request, effective immediately. No explanation given. Priest had hung up, gotten dressed, and driven with aggressive annoyance to the Seattle bureau to pick up her replacement. 

Another greenhorn.

The kid introduces himself as Sam Tanner but earns only a grunt in reply, and Priest shoves him into the little white rental he’d obtained for his personal use. Tanner has a dull glaze to his eyes that reminds Priest a lot of Hugo Friedkin and that is somehow less than reassuring.

They meet up with Bishop in the hospital parking lot. He climbs out of the black SUV and doesn’t look nearly surprised enough to find a blank-eyed stranger where Tran should be. Tanner reaches out and shakes Bishop’s hand like he’s someone important, and from that moment on Bishop takes an obvious liking to him. 

Priest tuts in annoyance. It’s a bright morning but it’s cold as hell, and he’s not about to stand around for this shit. He slides into his usual spot in the driver’s seat while the other two exchange pleasantries. By the time they join him in the car they’ve established a clear pecking order--Bishop’s got about a week’s worth of fieldwork under his belt, so he’s naturally Tanner’s superior. 

Priest fixes Bishop with a flat look but decides not to start off with an interrogation.

“Enjoy your night off?”

“Yes, sir. It was nice to get out of the car.” He turns around to offer Tanner a brittle smile. “Hope you like sitting, kid.”

Tanner laughs because he knows that’s what Bishop expects. He mercifully doesn’t try to start a conversation, so that’s already a step up from his predecessor in Priest’s opinion.

Speaking of which.

“Ms. Tran requested an immediate transfer,” Priest shares. Bishop only offers a polite nod. Priest’s stare hardens and the other man clears his throat.

“I assumed as much when I saw Tanner here. This isn’t exactly a four-man operation.”

“She didn’t give a reason for wanting to get the hell out of Dodge. Care to provide any insight, Mr. Bishop?”

Bishop frowns and tilts his head in with calculated curiosity. “No, sir.”

“Uh-huh,” Priest drawls. He considers pursuing the issue but decides it doesn’t much matter of it’s Tran or Tanner or any other lackluster agent. He’d trade half a dozen recruits to have someone like Bishop on the team--someone eager to play the game. And, sure, he’s a goddamn liar but Priest can hardly fault him for that; in the grand scheme of things, whatever he had said or done to have Tran running for the hills was all in good fun. 

Priest plans to make that the least of Bishop’s sins by the end of the week.

◈ ◈ ◈

Dirk shouts himself awake, and although the remnants of a nightmare leave him shaky he can’t call the details to mind. But he quickly decides that’s probably for the best.

He uncurls his fists and sits up, disoriented, and tells himself that he’s home, he’s safe--but then he remembers that Todd isn’t, and Mona’s upset with him, and Farah, she’s probably still upset too and--

Dirk abruptly stands up and creeps out of his room; he’s alone in his apartment, but the need to tiptoe doesn’t leave him even after he checks every corner. 

“Fine, just fine. It’s all fine,” he tells himself, but his voice is too loud in the stillness of the kitchen and it gets his heart pattering away with anxiety. He strains to listen for any noise out of place, but there’s only the ticking of the clock with cute little cat ears he and Todd had picked up at a Goodwill.

“Todd might wake up today,” he says happily to no one. It’s a pleasant reminder, pleasant enough that he can unclench his fists for the second time that morning and open the fridge. 

It’s a pretty bleak sight. A squishy-looking orange, half a chocolate bar, and an expired carton of milk line one shelf, and three sad cans of Fanta line another. He opens the little plastic drawers at the bottom even though he knows they’re empty. Well, empty except for that suspicious stain he’s never been able to wipe away.

In the end he elects to finish off the questionable chocolate bar and dump the milk, and he feels a bit better for it. “I’ll get breakfast in the cafeteria,” he mutters with forced cheer. Overpriced scrambled eggs aren’t his idea of a good way to start the morning, but he knows he’ll need more than half a Milky Way to keep him going. 

He dresses haphazardly, then realizes that in his haste he’s put together a less than impressive outfit--definitely not worthy of being the first thing Todd sees upon waking up. Dirk goes back to his closet and gives it some thought, and with an aching chest he elects to change into a black t-shirt, his yellow jacket, and the same pair of pants he’d been wearing that fateful day at the diner. 

He’s not sure why, but it feels fitting that it should be something familiar, something meaningful. And, okay, he doesn’t have the Mexican Funeral shirt anymore--who knew what those pricks at Blackwing had done with it--but a basic black replacement would have to do.

He goes to the mirror and nods in approval. It would do, indeed. 

Grabbing his keys off the counter, he pauses mid-step and then belatedly reaches for Todd’s cell phone. Turning it over in his hand, he tries to light up the screen but it remains a stubborn, fathomless black. Dead battery. 

Why the hell had Mona even taken it in the first place? Surely even _she_ didn’t think Dennis needed a cell phone.

Trying very hard not to think about his less than pleasant conversation with her, Dirk pockets the phone, grabs his own, and then heads upstairs to find Todd’s charger. He hesitates on the second floor landing and then goes up to the third floor on an impulse, but neither Dennis or Mona are anywhere to be found. He considers the room, now radiant with buttery light, and feels a queasy quiver in his stomach. 

He turns tail and goes downstairs before he can think too much about anything in particular, but every suppressed anxiety comes crashing down on him the moment he opens Todd’s door. 

There’s nothing particularly out of place. Todd’s kept the place tidy ever since the lengthy post-Rowdy 3 clean up, and there’s not really anything to indicate that anything had ever been wrong. 

Dirk finds himself out of breath all the same, his gaze glued to the spot that Todd had collapsed. He closes his eyes but the afterburn remains. 

His anger at Mona suddenly returns in full force and he nearly shouts out, hoping maybe she was a literal fly on the wall, but he grips his hair and tugs hard until the feeling fades away. He’ll have to restyle his hair later, but it’s better than bursting into tears. 

“Deep breath,” he tells himself, as chipper as he can manage.

He turns abruptly toward the bed, knowing the phone charger to be plugged into the wall--unless a certain shapeshifter had snatched that, too--but his foot connects with something hard and boxy on the floor and he finds himself flailing for balance.

In the end, he stumbles over his own feet and lands heavily on his side. He lies stunned for a moment, then rolls over onto his back, rubbing ruefully at the healed-but-still-sore gunshot wound on his thigh, and sits up to see what the hell he’d tripped over.

A lumpy-looking ouija board box sits at an odd angle. Right where he’d dropped it two days ago.

Dirk falls back flat on his back and sucks in air into his lungs until the tears clear from his eyes. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this. Today was a good day. The day Todd would wake up. He’d mark it on a calendar every year--September 22nd, The Day Todd Woke Up. He’d mark it in blue pen, or maybe a blue sharpie, or--

His phone buzzes once in his pocket but he ignores it. 

He doesn’t want to talk to Farah. If she was still just texting it meant she didn’t have any real news--she’d call if Todd woke up before he got there.

Dirk rolls over to face the bed and tries not to think about that, either. He wants to be there. He wants to be the first thing his poor, sick friend sees. He knows that means that he should get the hell up off the floor, but he just can’t manage it.

He doesn’t want to see Farah because he doesn’t want to tell her about Mona. 

He had introduced Mona to Farah, to _Todd_ , and meeting her had directly resulted in--

Best not to think about that either. There were a lot of things to avoid thinking about lately. Blackwing wasn’t the least of them, either--

“Shit.” He’s pretty much exhausted the ‘Do Not Think About This Terrible Thing’ list and it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning. “Okay, get up, Dirk. Get up now.”

He doesn’t get up. He stays right where he is, wallowing in despair on Todd’s floor. 

He berates himself for ever crashing into Todd Brotzman’s life--he should have walked away after Lydia Spring’s rescue. That’s usually how it worked. Or, rather, everyone else walked away, but the point remained--when the job was done it was time to move on. But Todd had shown up at the hospital. He’d stayed at Dirk’s side. 

Dirk dwells on that for a solid five minutes and then gives himself another five until he has to get up and go. If he wants to get there before visitation officially begins for the day, he’s _got_ to get moving.

The sun shifts into his eyes and blinks in annoyance. Then he blinks a second time because something orange catches his eye again, but this something is small and shiny like plastic--

“Oh,” he breathes out, then suddenly he’s gasping in and lunging for the pill container under the bed. He pulls it out from behind the ouija box and an old Seattle Zoo pamphlet and stares down at it, his mind mercifully empty of all thought. 

He’s not sure exactly how long he sits on the floor and stares at the prescription bottle in his hand, still labeled ‘Amanda Brotzman’ because Todd somehow _still_ hasn’t been to the doctor, but the first tangible thought that comes to him is bittersweet.

“It was here the whole time,” he groans. “Mona--shit.”

But he’d searched under the bed, back when Todd was having the attack--didn’t he? He’d searched the shelf, the blankets, the floor--but had he looked under the bed?

He doesn’t remember. He certainly hadn’t looked behind the damned box. The box he’d carried in and dropped the moment he’d entered the flat that day.

He could easily blame himself for that, but in a surprising moment of clarity he realizes that it isn’t anyone’s _fault_. There was no supernatural entity haunting Todd--no ghost, no vengeful catified cultist, not even whimsical Mona Wilder had ultimately been responsible for this one. 

It was just an accident.

Todd would wake up, he would recover, and they would keep better track of his medication. He would go to the damned doctor and get his own prescription and stick to the recommended dosage. Dirk would be there to make sure of it. 

He stands and swallows the thick lump in his throat, and he finds that he can breathe easy for the first time in days. 

For once, maybe it _wasn’t_ all connected. 

Maybe everything would be alright.

◈ ◈ ◈

Priest is less than happy. In fact, he's downright flabbergasted. Another anonymous call about Project Incubus. Ken is speaking evenly in his ear, but Priest can tell he's excited.

"Where?"

_"Montana,"_ Ken replies. That earns a frown from Priest, but Ken can't exactly see it, so he articulates his concern.

"Bergsberg?”

_"No, some nothing town called Belgrade."_

"Well now, I don't mean to sound pessimistic, Ken, but something doesn't feel right about that."

_"Caller said it was two girls--one with rainbow hair--and four men in gray leather. They trashed every car in a McDonalds parking lot, spray painted a three on the side of the building, and then took off in a van."_

"Well shoot, Ken. That does sound like them." He glances over at Bishop, who is watching intently. Tanner, being the dumb newbie that he is, isn't paying attention at all.

_"Why don't you head into the Seattle office and listen for yourself,"_ Ken suggests, suddenly sounding distracted. _"Let me know what you think."_

Priest grunts. Ken hangs up. Bishop's still staring.

"Well, guess I better check it out. You two keep eyes on the hospital. I don't want Ms. Black or our friend Icarus getting up to anything without us knowing."

"Yes, sir," come two obedient replies.

"Stay sharp," he advises. 

He slides out of the driver's seat and slams the door just a little too hard.

◈ ◈ ◈

_“I don’t know what either of us are going to do if he doesn’t wake up. What if he dies?”_

“Hey, whoa, man. Don’t even go down that road, Farah,” Tina warns, chewing fretfully at her fingernails. 

_“There’s no guarantee. There’s never any guarantee--”_

“Now hold on. I’ve seen some crazy shit. _We’ve_ seen some crazy shit. Mages and dust-ladies--”

_“What? That wasn’t--”_

“I’ve shot some kind of, like, air blast out of a plastic toy gun! That some superpowered _little kid_ literally dreamed into creation, Farah!”

_“Tina--”_

“No man, listen. Todd’s not going to die. He’s going to wake up and he’s going to go right back to being annoyed by Dirk and impressed by you--”

Farah makes a noise, one Tina hopes is amusement. “It’s going to be okay,” she continues, using her ‘don’t you wig out on me’ voice that works wonders on the meth heads and wino moms. “The universe is all whacked out or whatever, but it’s still on our side.”

There’s a long pause and if Tina didn’t know Farah she would think the call had dropped. But, predictably, there’s a heavy sigh a few moments later. 

_“I don’t know about that. But--still, thanks. I guess I needed to hear that.”_

“Shit, dude, anytime.” Tina huffs out a sigh of relief and leans back as far as she can into the dinky office chair. It holds her weight--barely, the cheap piece of crap--and she stares upsidedown at the wall behind her. 

Tina can hear muffled voices in the background, sometimes a robotic voice over a speaker system, and every now and then she hears squeaky wheels--presumably gurneys or wheelchairs, but she really doesn’t know. 

She throws out a few topics and Farah clings to them like they’re lifelines, but they’d talked for hours the last two nights and Tina’s life wasn’t _that_ interesting, and Farah’s primarily consisted of sitting around the hospital and waiting for Todd to wake up or Dirk to come back.

“Todd’s dad come back yet?”

_“Not that I know of. But maybe.”_

Tina surpresses a laugh and asks, “anyone tell him you’re engaged to his son yet?”

_“N-no, I don’t think so. It… hasn’t come up.”_

“You two are pretty cute together, you know,” she teases, hoping to get a rise out of her friend. Farah only offers a dignified, noncommittal hum. “You don’t think so? Well, guess he is on the short side. But hey, they call that fun-sized, right?”

_“Tina,”_ Farah laughs, and it’s one of those ‘I shouldn’t be laughing but I am’ kinds of laughs. Tina smiles into the phone and ignores Hobbs when he makes an excited hoot somewhere behind her. 

He did that pretty often. It usually just meant he’d found a particularly interesting news article, or that his cousin had sent a funny text. 

Suddenly inspired, Tina leans forward over her desk and half-covers her mouth with one hand to muffle her voice. 

“Hey, you wanna have phone sex?”

Tina doesn’t have a word for the noise that Farah makes, but slaps her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh when she realizes it sounds a lot like a goose honk. 

_”Tina!”_ comes the stunned admonishment once Farah catches her breath. _“What--”_

“Just a joke, man! Lighten up! But, like… if you wanted to…”

_”Tina--I’m at the _hospital_ \--”_

“Another joke!” Tina interrupts loudly, breaking out into a sweat when Hobbs turns around in his chair and frowns. But he waves a newspaper in front of her face and she thinks that’s the likely cause of his dismay, not Tina’s complete and utter disregard for professionalism. 

“Hey listen, Farah, Hobbs just walked over and he’s, like, got his Serious Face on. I think some stuff is going down. I’ll call you later!”

_“O-oh, okay,”_ comes Farah’s uncertain reply. 

“Later!” Tina chirps. She hangs up and sits up straight in her chair to smile nervously at Hobbs, who hasn’t lowered the newspaper. 

“Take a look at this, T.” He waggles the paper until she takes it. “They’re leaving!”

“Who--” she starts, but then focuses on the article. There’s a picture of the Cardenas house and a caption in bold beneath. “Whoa, Blackwing’s backing off?”

“Looks like it. Weird, right?”

“ _Super_ weird, Hobbs.” She scans the article and then sets it down. “Why do you think they’re leaving?”

“No idea,” Hobbs mutters, bracing his hands on his hips and frowning in thought. “Think they finished poking around in there?”

“Maybe. Want to check it out?” 

She’s half-joking. As curious as she is, she’s not looking to get shot again. But Hobbs seems to be giving it serious consideration. 

“Maybe,” he says slowly. “Why don’t you give Farah a call back and see what she thinks? I’ll be back in a bit, Mr. Kent’s truck got stuck in that pothole again.”

“ _Again?_ ”

“Again.”

“Alright, Hobbsy, see ya.” She salutes him and he chuckles, dropping his hat onto his head and making for the door. 

Tina immediately picks her cell phone back up and dials Farah again, and the other woman answers on the second ring.

“ _Tina? Everything okay?_ ”

“Maybe! Dude, we’re not sure. We just read this newspaper article that says Blackwing’s packing up and getting out of town.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I know, right? Isn’t that weird?”

“ _Very. Does it say why?_ ”

“Nope. But Hobbs ‘n me are thinking about checking it out ourselves. What do you think?”

There’s a weighty pause on the other end of the line. “ _I don’t know, Tina. Could be dangerous._ ”

“You don’t think we should go?”

“ _Well--I think you should use your best judgement. Maybe drive by and see if there are still agents hanging around. If there are, don’t risk it. Don’t give them any reason to come after you guys._ ”

“Got it. Damn, that’s smart. You’re real smart, Farah.”

“ _Er, thanks,_ ” comes Farah’s predictably embarrassed reply. Tina thinks it’s up to her to get the other woman more acclimated to flattery. But maybe that could be shelved for another time.

“So, Farah, where were we? Phone sex, I believe?”

A strangled gurgle of surprise and a scandalized _”Tina!”_ echoes through the phone.

◈ ◈ ◈

Priest replays the recording three times. There's nothing Ken hadn't already shared, but something is _irking_ him.

He listens again.

And again. 

He abruptly realizes it's the same voice as the first recording only moments before some nameless technician knocks on the door.

"Come in," Priest demands impatiently. A young woman steps forward, her back straight and her eyes set somewhere past his left ear.

"Sir, we just got in touch with Belgrade’s police department. There have not been able to substantiate reports of any vandalism, in a McDonalds parking lot or elsewhere."

Priest exhales noisily. "So the call was a hoax."

The tech doesn't answer that, most likely because she doesn't have an answer. He dismisses her with an absent wave and he turns back to the recording.

He plays it again.

Then he plays the tape from the call in Kentucky and there's no doubt--it was the same caller. He'll have their people confirm it with software later, but that would just be a formality.

"First call was real, second was a fake..." he mutters to himself, drumming his forefinger on the birchwood desk. "By all accounts, that makes no goddamn sense."

He picks up the phone and dials Ken, who expectantly asks for an update. Priest shares the only thing he knows for sure.

"Someone's playing games."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the date mentioned in this chapter stuck out to you there are two likely reasons, and either way you're are a goddamn nerd and also I love you.


	10. The Day The World Went Away

He's underwater. 

A wave draws him under the green sea and his lungs burn cold. There is no way up, no guiding light to the surface--there’s only the bitter swell of brine and endless emptiness around him. His parents and his little sister are waiting on the shore and he's about to ruin their vacation, the first they've had since Amanda's fifth birthday, and he can’t think of _why_ he’s alone beneath the whitecaps but he doesn’t doubt that he’s where he belongs. 

He deserves it. He knows it in his bones but still he struggles against the biting cold. Saltwater rushes into his nose and it _hurts_ and he _can't breathe_ and the last thing he said to his sister was that he--

Todd blinks up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Amanda's name is curled on his dry tongue but he's not in Orlando and she's not here. 

He takes a breath in and makes a noise of protest at the uncomfortable little tubes in his nose. He thinks he can still smell the ocean and for a moment reality warps and he's under the frigid Florida water again, but then a hand touches his shoulder and he's back. Todd frowns and tries to shrug the hand off, disoriented. Where the hell is he?

"Todd?" a familiar voice murmurs.

"Amanda...?" He narrows his eyes against the whitehot glow of the room and makes out a silhouette looming over him. He tries to call the figure into focus but can’t quite manage it.

"No, Todd, I--"

"Farah," he breathes out weakly, and his brain abruptly catches up the last six months fast enough to give him whiplash. He shivers on the bed and then the her hand is back to give his arm a reassuring squeeze. He doesn't pull away this time.

"Where 'm I?"

"The hospital. You--Todd you had an attack."

"Oh," he says, struck dumb by the memory. "I was... what was I..." He'd been choking. His lungs had filled up and--

"Try not to get worked up," Farah suggests when his breathing speeds up. She’s not wrong, but he frowns at the edge in her voice.

"You sound... worried." He has to pause to swallow around the dry lump in his throat. "Where's Dirk?"

She hesitates and tries to play it cool, but his eyes have adjusted enough to see the wrinkle of anxiety on her forehead. 

"Is he okay? Farah, what happened?"

"Todd, stop, it's alright. What did I just say? Just calm down, Dirk's fine."

"Oh.” He sinks down deeper against the pillow, exhausted by the brief conversation. "Where--?"

Farah grimaces. Todd immediately takes a disliking to the frustration that radiates off of her, and he ridiculously feels the need to defend the detective before he even knows what the man’s done wrong. 

"He's... off being Dirk," she offers lamely, and Todd finds that anything but reassuring. "But listen, Todd, I have to go. I’m, I’m _so_ glad that you’re awake, but I have check on something."

"Okay," he murmurs amiably, suddenly very much okay with the prospect of a quick nap.

"I'll be back soon, but--Todd, your dad is here."

He stinging eyes snap open again and peers up at her, trying to keep the alarm off of his face but he's _sure as shit_ not ready for this, not now--

Farah steps back, glancing over her shoulder, and Todd makes out a figure waiting behind her. He squints in confusion but Farah just gives his arm another squeeze.

"He'll sit with you until I get back, okay?"

"Farah, that's not--" he starts, but it's a barely-there protest and she's already gone.

Todd’s left to stare blankly at the man in his room.

◈ ◈ ◈

Farah storms into the office only to stumble over something hard just inside the door. She windmills her arms wildly for balance and very narrowly avoids joining the corpse on the ground, which is staring sunken-eyed up at her.

She gapes. She doesn't recognize the young man--she’s not sure she would even if she did know him because his flesh is drawn tight and twisted and it’s _wrong_ and unlike anything she’s ever seen. But she definitely recognizes the black uniform. Her cell phone is in her hand but she draws a blank on who to call.

The police? 

No, not with Blackwing involved--very, very much involved. She swallows hard and presses the back of her hand against her mouth, unable to look away from the wide, empty eyes of the agent on the floor. Just what the hell...

_Eddie_ , she thinks, and she's running the pros and cons of calling him through her mind when she abruptly connects the noise approaching from behind as quick footsteps.

She spins, drawing her firearm and aiming it straight into the face of a wild-eyed Dirk, who slams to a stop and squawks at her in protest.

"Shit--sorry," she exclaims, lowering the gun, and the tension deflates out of him immediately.

"Rude, Farah! What are you even..." 

Farah sees the exact moment Dirk sees the scene behind her. His jaw drops open.

"Farah, what in the world did you _do_?"

"What? I didn't do this, Dirk!" 

“Is this why you wanted to meet here instead of the hospital?” he demands in his loudest ‘I Am Outraged At This Situation’ voice.

“Dirk, stop,” she hisses, abruptly realizing that the actual culprit might still be hanging around. She pushes Dirk against the wall behind him and makes a shushing motion. He grumbles but obeys, and she quickly clears the office.

They’re alone.

She returns to find Dirk staring down at the dead Blackwing agent. He looks up at her, perplexed and pale, but there’s no explanation she can offer him. Instead, she grabs him by the arm and leads him down the staircase and onto the sidewalk. She doesn't let go until they're two blocks away, nestled safely in a crowd.

"What the hell, Farah?" Dirk demands. "Who was that man? What's going on?"

"I don't know!" she whispers urgently. "I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize telling me to get back to the office. That’s why I called you, I figured it was one of your, I don’t know, Things. And when I got there--he was just on the ground. He was already like that when I got there!"

"Okay, okay," Dirk twitters nervously, scanning the unfamiliar faces around them. His mouth wobbles open and closed. He looks lost.

"We should get back to the hospital. Something is going on and I don't like that Todd's there alone--"

"You left him alone?" Dirk objects with immediate heat, and Farah doesn't fight the flare of anger that rises up at the accusation in his voice. 

"Well, no, his dad's with him but--what was I supposed to do, Dirk? I've been trying to reach you since _yesterday_! Where have you been?"

She's caught off guard when his eyes light up. He grabs her arms and gives her an excited shake. "Oh, Farah! I forgot to tell you! I solved it!"

"You--you solved _what?_ "

"Todd's case, _obviously!_ "

Farah wants to hit him for the first time in a long time. She grits her teeth and refrains, but it's a near thing.

"Dirk, that can wait--"

"No, just listen to--Hold on." Dirk rears his head back and stares at her, baffled. "I’m sorry, did you say Todd's _father_ is at the hospital with him?"

"Yes, Todd was just waking up but when I got that text message--"

Dirk makes a noise, some cry of delight that bubbles up from his chest, and he's back to shaking her. "He woke up!?" 

"Yes, but, Dirk _listen_ to me--"

"Let's go!" His eyes are suddenly bright and wet, and he’s smiling so hard she has to wonder if it hurts his face. "Come on!"

Farah allows him to tug her along, relieved that they're at least moving in the right direction. She can’t make sense of any of it and there’s going to be hell to pay for the dead man in the lobby, but the only thing that matters is getting to Todd.

The gun is a comforting weight beneath her jacket. She tries to convince herself that she’s prepared for a fight.

◈ ◈ ◈

Priest stands in the middle of _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_ and frowns down into the vacant eyes of Tran's replacement. There's a flurry of activity around him but he remains perfectly still, a rock in a fast-flowing stream, allowing his thoughts to mozy along as the picture slowly comes together.

Agent Tanner is dead.

Bishop is missing, probably dead too.

Hell, even the damn rental car had disappeared. GPS disabled, no sign of it on any CCTV in the neighborhood.

What the _fuck_.

"Sir," a timid voice as his elbow interrupts. "His face--he looks like--"

"Yeah," Priest drawls out, his eyes never leaving the corpse sprawled before them. "This looks like Incubus' work alright. Poor kid had the life sucked right out of him."

"But... we haven’t had any reports of a fatality from Incubus in years. And there's no indication that Project Incubus is even in the state. That last call had been a hoax, so how--"

"How indeed," Priest muses darkly. There's a thought forming in the depths of his mind. It's not a pleasant one. In fact, it's downright goddamn unfortunate.

He turns on his heel and slips his phone out of his pocket, then thumbs through his contacts until he lands on Ken's number. It rings six times before Supervisor Adams picks up. 

_"Status report? Have you secured Todd Brotzman?"_

"Yeah... hold off on that for a minute, boss. We've got ourselves a problem here."

And then Priest laughs. It's a thin, reedy sound, nearly manic, but he's suddenly just _so_ goddamn excited.

"I think Project Succubus has made contact."

◈ ◈ ◈

The man in Todd’s room sits down delicately, then crosses one leg over the other. He studies Todd quietly for a few moments, then removes his thick-framed glasses. Todd’s nearly incoherent with sedatives and confusion and the questions he needs to ask just won’t come out.

The man begins to clean his glasses, moving the hem of his dress-shirt in slow circles over each lens as the silence stretches on. His dark eyes never leave Todd.

Absurdly, Todd thinks about screaming for help. He’s in a hospital--surely someone would hear and come running. But the man in front of him has the eyes of a predator, and despite his prim posture he seems wound tight. 

He’s a snake coiled to strike.

“Mr. Brotzman.” The man’s voice isn’t loud--it isn’t soft, it isn’t harsh. It isn’t anything. It leaves no impression at all but Todd’s stomach shrivels and twists, like his guts are trying to hide deeper inside of him. The stranger seems expectant but Todd instinctively knows he’s not supposed to speak.

The man slowly folds and sets his now pristine pair of glasses on the bedside table. He uncrosses his legs, braces his elbows on his knees, and leans forward with a cold smile. 

Todd’s heart begins to hammer in his chest. 

"It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Brotzman. I’m going to need you to listen to me very carefully."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I was originally going to write and submit this as one long story. That was the plan until about twenty minutes ago, and I can't exactly explain why but I decided that splitting it up into a series made more sense. I guess it just seems more organized. But I'm not sure if okay to post a story split up like this on ao3, so feel free to let me know if it's super annoying--I can always change it.
> 
> So, anyway, yeah! This marks the end of Part One. But I personally only like a cliffhanger when I can immediately indulge in the aftermath, so I'm posting the first chapter of Part Two today as well!  
> I hope you guys enjoy it.


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